The Importance Of Keeping Promises To Yourself: Part 1

By: Brooke Phelps, LCSW

In thinking about what it means to keep a promise, many of us think of the importance of keeping our word to a friend, a partner, a relative, or even an employer. Keeping our word often provides us a way to demonstrate different values we hold dear such as reliability, trustworthiness, compromise, integrity, or simply, that we care. 

Promises also require us to thoughtfully consider our time, our responsibilities, and our limitations, in order to set ourselves up for success in delivering on our word. Anyone who has been on the receiving end of a broken promise understands the frustration or disappointment that can arise when a commitment is not upheld. It is possible that we may even notice a lot of our own motivations for keeping our word often stem from a place of not wanting someone to experience the negative consequences of a broken promise. 

While keeping our promises to others is an important aspect of a relationship, keeping promises to ourselves are equally, if not more important. Keeping our word to ourself can help us to feel empowered, goal-driven, and confident. Here are some ideas and strategies about the importance of keeping promises to yourself: 

1.     Trust=confidence: Trust is strongly backed by the belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. Similarly, it is also the idea of placing confidence in someone or something. Each time we keep a promise to ourselves, we show ourselves that we are trustworthy, we uphold our word, and we can confidently rely on ourselves to follow through on our commitments. Recognizing that we can trust ourselves to follow through with our word helps us to see the impact that keeping promises has on our overall self-esteem. 

2.     Be cautious about prioritizing external expectations over internal expectations: So often we feel pressure to meet an external demand, even at the expense of a commitment we’ve made to ourselves. Certainly, there are times in life where we have to be flexible, however, we can also be thoughtful in these decisions and set realistic boundaries. Keeping our own needs in mind helps maintain balance and prevent burn out. Prioritizing commitments to ourselves not only strengthens self-reliance, but it also helps us feel recharged and empowered in order to meet the demands of daily life, all because of the boundaries that we have set for ourselves!  

3.     Thinking from a friend’s perspective: If you were your own friend, would you be satisfied or disappointed with the reliability in which you keep your promises? This perspective can help us recognize the importance of keeping promises to ourselves by seeing ourselves as the friend. When we repeatedly break a contract with ourselves, we may end up internalizing feelings of disappointment, frustration, distrust, or unimportance towards ourselves, which could be damaging to our self-esteem. 

If you want to work on keeping promises to yourself and improved boundary setting, reach out today to hello@upsidertheray.com to learn more. We are here to help!