Who Are You Breaking Promises To

According to a quick Google search, 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by February 1. So, for most of us, today is the last day of our “new year, new me.”

As a society, we’ve come to a place where we’ve made a joke of New Year’s resolutions. We assume that people won’t keep them. Then, we are genuinely surprised when come December, someone says they have stuck to their resolution for the entire year. And the person we most expect to renege on resolutions are ourselves!

This reminded me of a passage from Rachel Hollis’ Girl, Wash Your Face where Rachel explains, “I’m the FIRST person I break a promise to…I used to do that all the time until I realized how hard I was fighting to keep my word to other people while quickly canceling on myself.”

Rachel goes on to explain how frustrated we would be with a friend who constantly cancelled plans. Imagine if every time we tried to go to lunch, or meet for dinner, the person texted us just before we were due to meet, “Sorry, the episode I’m watching on Netflix is just too good. I have to cancel.”

But this is what we do to ourselves! Think about it. How many times have we skipped the gym because we just didn’t feel like going or decided to prioritize something else? Or we made an unhealthy food choice because it was easier and less time consuming than cooking?

Every time we break a promise to ourselves, we are doing ourselves a big disservice. As Rachel explains, “Our subconscious knows that you, yourself, cannot be trusted after breaking so many plans and giving up on so many goals.”

But we can flip the script! We can stop quitting and breaking promises to ourselves. Let’s start showing up for ourselves just as much as we show up for others. And we aren’t keeping these promises to ourselves as a penance for the times we’ve quit. Instead, we’re keeping our promises because we are worthy and deserving of the goals we set!

Think of the possibilities of how many goals we could accomplish and New Year’s resolutions we could keep if we just start keeping promises to ourselves.

As we head into February, let’s not be part of the statistic that breaks promises to ourselves. We gave ourselves our word, so let’s make that mean something.

Until next time…we are Advoco, make every minute count.

About Molly: Molly Hallman is our Engagement & Experience Coordinator, helping the marketing team with all things writing related, websites, social media, and events. When she’s not telling the Advoco story, she’s spending time with her dogs and her husband in pursuit of Greenville’s best hot dog (current favorite: the mac and cheese dog from the Greenville Drive Stadium.) Got a question for Molly? Send her an email!