I’ve done it, maybe even a million times. Just up and broke a promise that I made and let the person down, flat out.
Only here’s the thing – the promises I’ve broken most, are the ones I’ve made to myself.
Seems like it’s easier to let yourself down than to lift yourself up, which is sort of the most unhappy thought in the world I’d guess.
And yet, we all do it. In fact, probably most of us do it ‘round about January 15th or thereabouts. What else are those resolutions we make when the calendar page turns except promises to ourselves?
Which we promptly break a couple of weeks later.
I don’t know exactly the why of it all, except to say that maybe it’s just easier to keep a promise to someone else than it is to keep one that we make to ourselves. Or maybe we don’t even think of resolutions or dreams or goals or plans or even the daily to-do list as promises.
But they are. Or at least they could be.
I could look at that list I make, things I’m supposed to get done today, and maybe stop seeing them as chores or tasks or wishes or boxes, but as promises.
Promises of what I will do, not just what I’d like to do.
I could take my to-do’s seriously enough to elevate them to the status of promise, and when I’ve kept them and checked them off, I have record of being true to my word.
And the not checking them off? Suddenly they’re not tasks left undone, but promises broken and maybe it’s time to stop making too many promises we can’t keep and maybe it’s also time to start keeping the promises that we do make – especially the ones we make to ourselves?
To-do lists could very well see a major overhaul if we thought of them this way. Before saying yes to too many things and tucking our dreams into the last couple of lines just in case we find the time, maybe we could line up our priorities a bit more with what it is that we want to promise ourselves?
Maybe instead of an afterthought, getting to the gym could make it to number two on the list and maybe we could consider the treadmill the platform from which we tell the world, but mostly ourselves, that we matter enough to keep the promises we make to ourselves.
What if instead of stuffing so much into the day, I just promise to do the stuff that really matters?
Here’s the thing – it’s almost the end of June. Six months since January 1st. Half a year away from the promises I might’ve made back when the wind was whipping itself into a fury and my garden was buried in drifts.
I might not have kept the resolutions I made. You might not have either. Honest? We might not even remember them, or maybe we’re remembering them just now.
And yeah, six months have passed and yeah, lots of us have probably broken our January 1st promises long before now.
But now is the only real reality and now could be just the very best time to promise again and now could be the moment we stop letting ourselves down and start picking ourselves up.
I promise.
~xo,
LuAnne
