How Well Do You Keep Your Promises to Yourself?

On the patterns we break, the ones we don't, and the book I finally stopped abandoning

Photo by Mandy Henry on Unsplash

I’m a woman of my word…. with everyone except myself.

When I make a commitment I’m devoted to following through on that.

My inner task master will hound me to do whatever it takes not to break the promise I made to someone else.

The task master takes no excuses. She doesn’t believe in reassessing capacity. She screams at me to push through no matter what when I’ve told someone I would do something. The only exceptions are extreme illness (rare) or injury (also rare.)

I remember committing to teaching an in-person EFT workshop in a venue where I’d never taught before. This was during an era when I was having some flare ups of back pain caused by a car accident. A few hours before the class was to start I stepped out of the shower and lifted up my leg to dry it… and fell to the floor in agony. That motion had somehow triggered some intense spasming in my lower back, worse than I’d ever experienced. I writhed around for a while trying to figure out how I could possibly teach while in such pain.

Eventually and with extreme reluctance I called the venue to cancel. Despite my copious apologies, the response was frosty. Back pain is one of those things that raise eyebrows as to how serious it can possibly be. The workshop had been advertised for weeks. My sense of shame consumed me and just added to the pain. How could I let everyone down?

That was nearly 10 years ago and it still bothers me that I canceled a workshop on the same day.

And yet, when it comes to making commitments to myself I renege all the time. Excuses abound in that case. Somehow my inner task master never got the memo that promises to oneself are equally important as promises to another person.

This is something I’m working on.

Both of these come down to the same thing: letting myself down. Although of course it’s admirable to follow through on one’s commitments to others, it’s not all that great when your body might be telling you that you over-committed and you need to renegotiate.

As I age, I’ve come to a new (and reluctant) recognition of my own physical, mental and emotional capacity. In my 20s, 30s, and even my 40s, I was able to push past any capacity flags with little to no repercussions. But now - oh, it’s a different story completely! I pay for it when I push through, everything shuts down, and then I’m stuck not being able to do anything at all.

And yet, the habit of pushing through trips me up again and again. And then leaves me exhausted on the couch.

Sound familiar?

But back to keeping promises. How well do you keep your promises to yourself? To others? How honest are you with yourself about your own capacity when you make those promises?

If you’re anything like me, you have an overly optimistic vision of what your capacity will be in the future - be it later the same day, or a week from now. And so you enthusiastically promise away, essentially throwing yourself under the bus because you have not done a realistic assessment.

So, yes, I’m working on it. Trying to assess my own inner resources on any given day. To find a balance between what I want to do and what I actually CAN do.

It’s part of the greater work I’m about these days - which is building stronger self-trust and self-loyalty. I’ve realized these two things are the antidote to the pattern of self-abandonment that I’ve spun in for most of my life.

Whether it’s through over-promising when it will hurt to deliver, or breaking promises to myself, it all comes down to rigid demands of perfection for myself, and to this unconscious need to be accommodating and pleasing to others. I abandon myself when I center the needs of others over my own - and I’ve been doing it for so long, I’m still figuring out all the sneaky ways it happens.

I know I’m not alone. These patterns of people-pleasing, perfectionism and imposter syndrome show up in my clients and friends as well. They criticize and blame themselves for not doing enough, they give up on their own dreams to meet the expectations of loved ones or society in general - and then they beat themselves up for that too.

When does it all end?

The answer is - it ends with Intention. And with a lot of practice of making a different choice.

Better Late Than Never

Photo by lilartsy on Unsplash

Earlier this year I decided that I would break this pattern of self-abandonment in myself by finally writing a book - something I’ve wanted to do since I was 8 years old. I’d started and stopped book projects throughout my adolescence, dropped the whole thing during the years I raised kids and grew a business, then made a new commitment to myself when I sold the business.

That was more than 20 years ago. I did start writing again, but I never seemed to get past short form essays and blogs like this one. I wrote plenty of those. And, a lot of half finished pieces that sat on my computer or in notebooks. But I could never muster up the discipline and self-devotion to follow through on the book I’d promised myself I would write.

Oh, there were tons of excuses and reasons…. I need to make money, I need to keep up my exercise routine, I’m injured, I’m caught up in this compelling relationship, I’m moving around too much, I don’t know what the book should be about. I’ve got the beginning and the ending, but what the hell do I put in the middle?

But it really came down to keeping another commitment - this one unconscious: To let myself down.

As all of this gelled in my awareness, I called in support - from the real world and from the unseen.

And I made a commitment to myself that this time I would keep. I would complete and publish a book before my 65th birthday. And it would be about all the ways we women abandon ourselves - and how we can find our way back to self-trust.

And here, I am a couple of months before that self-imposed deadline, and I’m so close! I can’t wait to share my perfectly imperfect (short) book with you soon.

And holy moly! I have such a newfound respect for anyone who has done the work of actually completing a book. It is way more work than I realized, and yet the process has been - and continues to be - transformative.

Am I completely healed from my tendencies to over-promise and self-abandon? Nope. But I have a lot more awareness now, and a heck of a lot more compassion for the parts of me that still want to play that drum.

In the coming weeks I’ll be sharing more about my writing process, and about the cycles of self-abandonment and how to break them.

Because if there’s ever a time we need all of us at full capacity and trusting ourselves and our instincts - it’s now.

What about you? What promise to yourself are you ready to stop breaking?