Do you have a hard time doing what you say you are going to do?
Do you write something down in your schedule and your brain offers you this back, “No, you won’t”?
I see so many of my client’s having a hard time with this, they don’t trust themselves. They have begun to operate from a place of disbelief. They don’t honor their own commitments to themselves.
If they made a date with me they would keep it, but if they made a date with themselves they are quick to write it off as a bad idea, or change of plans. I especially see this with waking up, or having a quiet time.
So, if any of this resonates with you I want to offer you some tips and some new thoughts.
The first thing that has to happen, is for you to get really clear that you DO want to honor your commitments, no matter what. If you are going to say you are going to do something, you want to mean it. This will require you to think differently about you. You will need to begin to honor yourself and your decision making abilities. Thinking thoughts like, “I can make decisions that are important to me and I can honor them on a regular basis.” Begin with that thought and see how that feels. Does that work for you or do you need to find something closer to, “I am becoming someone that makes decisions and follows through.”
The next thing is to start practicing this. You have said so many times, “I don’t stick to my plans,” that we need to change that path in your brain. We need to go in and hack your brain and give it evidence that you do stick to your plans.
So, tonight before you go to bed I want you to write down on your planner or a sticky note one thing you are going to do and the time you are going to do it. Start small. Like pick something that you already do and it is easy for you. So if you are the queen of waking up at 7:45 even when you set your alarm for 6 then write down, “I will wake up at 7:45am” and then stick to that. You have to go in and build up that path in your brain that says, I stick to my commitments and then do just that. Each day, start deliberately exercising this by over and over creating a plan and sticking to it. You must practice this. Start small at the beginning, by just making a few commitments, and then after you get good at this, add in others that you want to start doing.
If you are wanting to wake up at 6 but you currently wake up at 7, start with “I wake up at 7,” and honor that. Then work backwards. I wake up at 6:55 and honor that. Keep on doing that until you are getting the results you want.
I have been implementing this with my schedule and training myself to write things down in my planner and I stick to them. When it says, “Laundry,” I just do it. No negotiation, no questioning if this is what I should really be doing. Just honoring that I made this decision and going with it. It is amazing the amount of wasted energy I was spending going back and forth on what I wanted/needed to be doing during a certain time slot. Before I go to bed each night I make my plan, and then the next day I honor it. I have been doing this with my food choices and even my workouts. I plan it the day before, when I am able to make decisions from my prefrontal cortex and not when I am in the moment from the lower brain. It has been amazing the results of truly learning to trust myself and honoring myself. It is so powerful what happens when you begin to treat yourself the way you would treat other people.
Listen, honoring yourself is NO JOKE. It is going to take intentional work to build this area up. Once you learn this skill of doing what you say you are going to do, you will be amazed at what is possible for you.
Can’t wait to see how this helps you,
Angie
P.S. If you don’t keep your commitment to yourself during this process, don’t bail on it completely. Be curious as to why you didn’t keep your commitment and see what your brain offers you. Open yourself up to learning from this and growing. We are all in process, but some of these tips may break down where you have been getting stuck before. Hang in there!
