Stop Breaking Promises to Yourself

Why is it so easy to keep our word to everyone else… but when it comes to the promises we make to ourselves, suddenly they become optional?

In this episode, Jen explores the powerful connection between self-trust, integrity, and personal leadership. When you repeatedly break your word to yourself, you quietly teach your mind that your commitments don’t matter. But when you start honoring the promises you make to yourself, something shifts — confidence grows, trust deepens, and your identity begins to change.

Jen shares a simple perspective on why keeping your word to yourself is one of the most powerful ways to strengthen your self-trust and show up more fully in your life and business.

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Transcript

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Have you ever noticed how easy it is to keep your word to everybody else? If a friend asks for help, you show up. If a client is waiting on you, you deliver. If somebody is counting on you, you make it happen. But when it comes to the promises you make to yourself, suddenly it becomes negotiable, right? So today I want to talk about something that most people overlook: that keeping your word to yourself and why it must be why this is the most powerful form of self-trust you can build. Here we go. You're listening to I Love Your Energy Bitch podcast. I'm Jen Stillian, a keynote speaker, an empowerment business coach, and a hypnotherapist, and I've spent the last decade helping clients stop living from who they had to be and start leaving from who they actually are. Because here's what I know for sure. Your energy is the most valuable currency you have. It's beautiful for you too. Whether you realize it or not, make a question out. Everything is energy. So in this podcast, I'm gonna teach you how to listen the energy that's actually more. So you can stop second-justing your voice, stop checking at the edge of being screen, and start empowering yourself to become the business owner and leader you already are. Because being screen isn't about, it's about embodying your personal power. Make sure you subscribe and tune in weekly. Welcome, my friends, to I Love Your Energy Bitch podcast. So, yes, today we are talking about the promises we make to ourselves and why suddenly it becomes optional. But yet, when it comes to relationships, we show up completely different, right? It comes down to self-trust, okay? But let's break it down a little bit more. When you meet somebody new, whether you're building a friendship, whether it's a work relationship, or maybe you're you're dating somebody, right? Trust is not automatic, it's built over time. And you watch if they keep your word, right? You are watching yourself and how you are showing up for that person, and they are doing the same. The reciprocity is there. And the more you guys are showing up and making the effort to hang out and be with each other and talk on the phone and make plans, right? Noticing that their actions match what they say and they're doing the same with you, you know how to build that trust with somebody, keeping your word. And also, when the more you do that, the more the walls come down. Okay. And then suddenly you're like, I could fully trust this person, but it takes time. So why the freaking heck don't we treat ourselves the same way? When it comes to building self-trust and keeping our word to ourselves at all costs, we negotiate. Right? And it's not cute because this what's this is what gets in the way of you following through, of you being consistent, of you being committed to yourself. And I've talked about talked about this before in previous uh episodes. And when we continuously break that trust with ourselves, when we don't, when we break our word, we stop believing our own commitments. And it's not cute. Okay. And so when what happens when we do that, you know, we start bel we stop believing in our own goals, we lose momentum, we hesitate, we like hesitate to take big bold action. And then we're saying things like, I'll start the program next week, I'll record content tomorrow. Um, I'll show up consistently. I know I will, I know I will, I know I gotta take care of myself, I know I will. And then you get lost in those excuses. And every time you break your word to yourself, you're teaching your brain that your commitments don't matter. That your that you don't matter. Ouch, Jen. Geez, Louise, okay. That's a bitch slap, okay, girl. And then your identity starts to shrink. Okay. When you show up for others, you are pumping them up. You are loyal. You will drop anything and everything to show up for that person or that loved one. My friend, you gotta put up the mirror and do that for yourself. And I'm speaking from my own experience. Like right now, in this moment, I'm gonna be honest with you. I do not want to record this podcast. I'm exhausted. Now, I don't like to push and do forceful energy. I do not, but I have enough energy. Hopefully, I'm articulating okay to do this episode because I'm committed to release my episode every Thursday. And this is a little bit last minute for me. I like to do it ahead of time. This is Wednesday afternoon. We just got done with the two-day camera confidence challenge, which was amazing, by the way. Oh, all the people that had so many incredible shifts. If you're listening, good job, good job, good job. And so it's a lot of energy to hold space in those challenges. I love doing it, but I'm coming down from it. And so, guess what? I'm in my bed. I'm usually in my office recording, and I'm like, what do I need to do for myself? You know what? Let's just prop myself up in bed and let's do this because I'm keeping my word to myself. And it's really not a big deal. I'm like, I'm gonna just sit in my bed for 20 minutes and talk to my friends. That's how I see it. But I don't get into it. Okay. Now, if I was really exhausted and I was like, this is too forceful, I'm not in that energy. It's more like, ah, I'm like a little kid. I was like, I don't want to, I don't want to do it. And then I was like, you know what? Let's just try this. Prop yourself up in your bed, set up your microphone, let's just see what happens. And here I am, you guys. And it's actually like, what was I complaining about in the first place? It doesn't matter, okay? The most important thing is that I show up for me. But this is the thing. This is the driver. The reason why you show up for others is because you're visible. Showing up for yourself is when nobody is watching. That right there, my friends, is where strength and your power comes from. Nobody is watching, except the universe, okay, or God, whatever word you want to use. Oh, it sees you, it knows. And entrepreneurs, if you're in business and leadership, need this the most because you're there's no boss over you watching, nobody's forcing you to show up and discipline is self-generated. It's you versus you. So this is me showing up for me. And every single time you show up for yourself and keep your word, okay, what you are doing is you're building your self-trust jar, your self-worth jar, your self-confidence jar. Just imagine this big, huge, beautiful jar. Okay, just imagine that. Imagine every time you say what you're gonna do when you actually do it, you're putting a dollar in there. And every single time. And this I actually did this. I put coins because I was tired of my BS, I was tired of my bullshit, and I needed to have incentives. Sometimes the brain loves rewards. And if you struggle with keeping your word, you could get a jar and put a coin in every time you do this. And then after a while, take that money and do something special for yourself. Okay, you gotta show up even when the world does not clap for yourself. You're gonna show up and there's no applause, there's no appraise. It's not about that. High performance leaders, six-figure and seven-figure earners who grow aren't always the most talented or gifted. They're the ones that keep their word to themselves consistently. That is how they built a badass business. Self-trust is built in private, in secret, long before success is visible. Okay, I want you to just sit with that for a second. You're not doing this to get, you know, appraised, to get validated, because a lot of the work is like, man, it's not cute, it's not fun, you know, but you do it anyway. Because it's part of it. There are tasks as an entrepreneur until you get to the point in your business where you can delegate those tasks that are not fancy, they're kind of boring. It's kind of like, oh my gosh, but you know what? It's just you can't put energy in it into it. You just gotta do it. It's part of the whole package. It's not glamorous, it's not cute. You're showing up every single day on TikTok or Instagram and you're getting low views because you just started out and it's been three or four or five months, and you're like, wow, I'm still at 50 views or 100 views, 200 views. That's part of the game. That's part of the game because you're learning lessons as you go. You're learning how to show up for yourself. And those lessons are gold. I'm telling you. Being an entrepreneur is personal development on crack. I told you, you learn lessons like you've never had before. So, how do you start rebuilding self-trust? Start here, my friend. Start making smaller promises to yourself. Don't say, I'm gonna change every single thing in my life, I'm gonna go for it all. No, my friend. The brain only likes tiny, small changes. Instead, say, today I'm just gonna show up. Today I'm gonna show up to I'm gonna show up for that one thing. That one thing. Just pick one thing that you're struggling with, keeping your word to yourself. Okay. Number two, follow through even when the energy isn't there. Not every day feels magical rainbows with unicorns. Okay. But when you show up anyway, you're strengthening that identity. Okay, let's just face it, we have days where we got barely any sleep the night before. And you made commitments to show up, and you're like, oh my gosh. And then once you do it, even if you've had a hard day, oh my gosh, you are strengthening that trust even more. You're like, good job. Wow. Good job. You know, the camera confidence challenge that I just did, I just want to tell you that I decided two weeks ago, two weeks to put this together. Now I did it last year. So I already have had an idea, but we had way more time last year to promote it, to pump it. And I'm like, I'm just gonna jump into this. I just felt it was the right time. I wanted to help people. I didn't overthink. I the very next day I started promoting. I just showed up every day, every day promoting, promoting, promoting. I'm like, I don't know how many people are gonna come. I have no idea. I didn't worry about the how. I just showed up. Because when you were in a launch like that and you're launching something and you want people to know about it, right? It's easy to get caught up in the how and how many people are signed up. I don't, I just don't care about that. Most people signed up like a few days before Camera Compass. It went from, I don't know, 30 people. I was like, okay, 30 people, yay! I was celebrating the whole time to over, I don't know, almost 200 people signed up. I'm just like, cool. You know, the more people, the better. So that's what I'm saying. Like, I just kept showing up and I did it in a small time frame, and it was amazing. And I'm so glad I did. Okay. So you have to celebrate how far you've come. You have to celebrate your integrity and your word to yourself, not perfection. It's not about being perfect, it's about somebody who keeps their word. And I'm gonna tell you a secret. When you keep your word to yourself, that is the most satisfying, incredible feeling. I'm talking about an instant confidence booster. You feel like you can do anything because you didn't allow your emotions to get in the way, you didn't allow the excuses to get in the way, you didn't allow the negative, like, uh, just too tired. You're just like, no, bitch, I got this. And you showed up. It's amazing. And sometimes you have to reward yourself. Rewarding yourself is is positive. It's good. Like if you're like, if your brain is starting to negotiate, if your brain is like, no, no, no, don't do this today, you're too tired. No, no, no, go rest, whatever. If you're getting into it, then say, hey, listen, I know you're trying to protect me. I hear you. Let's just take 10 minutes. All you have to do is 10 minutes, and then afterwards, we can do X, Y, and Z. Okay. Let's just commit for 30 minutes, whatever time frame you want to say. And then let's go read a book. Let's go chill for a while. Let's take a nap. Your work, your brain does like rewards. Okay. I kind of had to do that today, because you know, I'm a little, I'm a little off, but that's okay. And after we're done, I'm gonna chill out. And I was like, cool. But now that I'm talking, I'm in the flow, I'm enjoying the process. I'm like, what was I even hyped about anyway? It's all good. We make it so much harder than it is. And then when you're in it and you're doing the thing that you keep pushing, like pushing off or negotiating with, and then when you do it, you're like, what the heck was I freaking out before? What was I freaking out in the first place? Why did I make it so hard? It's it's the head game, my friend. And remember when it comes to your thoughts, your thoughts that trigger your emotions, your thoughts are not your thoughts. You are the thinker of your thoughts. So just observe, okay? And if you're gonna negotiate, negotiate some kind of reward or payoff for showing up and doing that action. So, where in your life right now are you not keeping your word to yourself? Is it your health? Is it some something in your business? Is it going live every day? Okay, like what is it for you? And how important is it for you to keep your word to yourself? Because your word is your value and how much you value others and love immensely others is a reflection of how you need to value and love yourself the most. If you want to rise as a leader, you want to rise in success, creating abundance for yourself. You have to be impeccable with what you tell yourself every single day. Don't lose out on that, my friend. Okay. It's one of the things I have learned from multimillionaires. They just don't back down. I worked with um, I was in a community for a long time and ended up being part of his team, and that's where I got a lot of my training and education from. He's one of the um subconscious identity um leading experts in the world. And he he was very disorganized. He he had an integrator, like he had somebody to help him with this business, but he always kept his word. No matter what, he showed up, no matter what, no matter what's going on in his life. And, you know, his episodes, I can't, I can't remember. I think they came out. He had a pot really, really well-known podcast, and his podcast would come out every Wednesday or something like that. And he literally, his whole team were like, uh, where's your podcast episode? The guy would be in his car recording his podcast episode, I swear, swear, at like 11 p.m. at night, right before midnight, the the the right before it's supposed to be released the next day. He would wait to the last minute, but he always got it done. You know, he he it's like everybody has a different way of getting it done, whether you do it last minute or not, it doesn't matter. But, you know, he taught me the value of keeping your word to yourself. And that's the thing: the more you keep your word to yourself, the more the people in your life will benefit from it. You're modeling what it's like to totally value and love yourself, that you're not going to break that contract with yourself, that your word is solid and you're not gonna break it because you know you're worth more. Okay. So what promises have you made to yourself lately that you've been postponing? What would change if you started keeping those promises? Who would you be, my friend? Who would you be? Because confidence it doesn't come from motivation, it comes from knowing that when you're saying when you say you're gonna do something, right? You do it. No matter what. And that begins keeping your word to yourself. Okay. And if you want the world to trust you, start becoming somebody who trusts themselves. Okay. I hope you enjoyed this episode, my friends. And I will see you next week. Bye. Well, thank you for listening to I Love Your Energy, bitch. If this episode spoke to you, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with somebody who needs this message today. And if you're ready to take your visibility and confidence to the next level, grab my free five day challenge, The Courage to Be Seen, and you'll find the link in the show notes below. I'll see you in the next episode.