Why We Need to Honor Commitments to Ourselves!

Does practicing self-care sound foreign to you and do you normally put yourself last?

How’s that working out for you?

For instance, perhaps you decided to practice self-care and take a much needed walk, near your home.

You put on your walking shoes and looked forward to listening to your podcast and breathing fresh air.

As you were heading out the door, the phone rang and you answered it.

Your friend had a non emergency and wanted to talk.

Instead of telling her that you’d call her back after you walked, you skipped the walk and talked instead.

You dishonored the commitment you made to yourself, and that was the end of that!

Is this a pattern in your life?

Why are the plans we make toward our own self-care not important enough to make an effort?

We make excuses about being too busy by watching tv, playing games, shopping, spending time on social media, or talking on the phone.

Does any of this sound familiar?

When we break commitments to ourselves, we choose to not show up which creates much disappointment.

Are You A People Pleaser?

When it comes time to do something for ourselves, our brains tell us to do everything except what we’ve committed to.

Our brains also tell us that it’s more important to honor commitments we’ve made to others, than to ourselves.

Instead of choosing self-care and creating our own internal happiness, we’d rather receive praise and approval from others in order to feel good about ourselves.

This is called people pleasing.

It might feel a little strange to not drop everything for others, but it’s what we’ve got to start doing in order to care for ourselves!

Things pop up all the time that will distract attention away from our own plans.

Doing for others first is fine and noble, but again, it’s not good if it’s interfering with our own self-care.

We have the power to change this habit and keep commitments to ourselves.

Plan for Obstacles!

We can change the habit of breaking commitments to ourselves by planning our day knowing there may be obstacles!

Plan strategies for things that might pop up, such as other people’s needs and demands.

We need to put ourselves and our own self-care first to be the best we can be.

“Honoring the commitments you’ve made to yourself teaches your brain that you can not only follow through on something but are capable of changing your behavior. Once you’ve managed to teach your brain that you can change one behavior that makes it much easier to change others” according to Unmistakablecreative.com.

It helps to sit down and create a list of all possible obstacles with strategies to implement, if the obstacles do pop up.

Let’s say we’ve finally set a goal to lose those extra pounds.

We’ve committed to sticking to a healthy protocol, and our loved one brings home an unexpected box of donuts.

Eating donuts are not part of our healthy protocol.