5: The Power of Keeping Promises to Yourself

Do you ever make promises to yourself that you end up breaking? In this episode of the Build Strong Women podcast, I'm diving deep into the importance of why keeping promises to yourself is crucial for personal growth and confidence. 

This is a vulnerable look into how my broken promises changed my life and my mindset! 

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Transcript

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Hi, I'm Laura Orlando and welcome to the Build Strong Women podcast. I believe as women that we are the role models for the next generation of girls. So how do we become the best role models for these young girls? We work hard to become the best version of ourselves, whatever that means to you. It's not easy. It takes work. It takes learning, trying new things, falling down and getting back up again. But that's what we do on the show. We dive deep into how we can grow on the inside. We will learn from women that are on the same journey as us. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Build Strong Women podcast. This is Laura Orlando. Thank you so much for being here and tuning in to this week's episode. I hope that you've been enjoying some of the episodes. I'm really excited for some future ones, and I'm really excited for some of the next episodes. about today's episode because this one is a little bit different and I know this podcast is new and I've only done a couple episodes, but this is going to be a little bit of a different episode. So long story short, I am writing a book slowly but surely. Who knows when this is going to even happen, but when I get inspired and when I get an idea, I just start writing and I'm not a writer by any means, but I just, just you know, it comes from my heart and I just start writing and I'm in the mood and I'm in flow. So I just do it. And I really wanted to write a book on this topic because it is something that has changed my life. It actually blew my mind when I started realizing what I was doing. So last summer, long story short, I went through a time where my mindset and just the way I was feeling about myself was terrible. I felt so crappy inside and I was like, what the heck is going on? Because it wasn't like me. It wasn't like me to feel this way for so long. So I started just kind of like journaling and kind of figuring out what the heck was going on. And when I realized what it was, it was mind blowing. And I really wanted to talk about this topic because I know it can help you Thank you. I really wanted to talk about this topic, but I just kept going back to what I wrote for that section of the book. But I really think it's going to capture the essence of like what I want to talk to you about, what I want to show you, what I want to teach you, what I want you to see and to learn. So I'm going to read that section of the book that I started writing and no judgment or anything. I'm feeling a little bit insecure about it, I have to say, because it's something that I wrote and it's just kind of the essence of what this book is all about. And what it's about is just about not breaking promises to yourself anymore. I figured out that that's what I was doing. And I really want to share this section of the book with you just because I think it's really going to help you. And who knows, maybe this will be a book someday. Maybe it won't, but I'm putting it out in the universe and I would love it to be. I'm not a writer by any means. But you know what? You never know what could happen. So this is... The first section that I really want to talk to you about, about not breaking promises to yourself. So here we go. This was from a journal entry that I wrote. I actually copied it word from word, what I wrote in my journal. So I'm going to start off with that. So here we go. I felt like crap yesterday. I didn't want to work out, but honestly, I felt like I needed to rest. Why do we do these things to ourselves? Feel guilty. I worked out today, I drank my protein shake, journaled, did my gratitude practice, dry brushed, showered, ate avocado toast and a hard-boiled egg, and guess what? I feel 100% better. I need to do things for myself that fill me up, because if not, I will feel blah, like I let myself down. Don't break promises to myself. That's the bottom line. When I don't, I become a better version of myself. In the same way, I need to give myself grace. I need to rest and have compassion, just like we give to others. I won't break a promise to myself again. I wrote those words on a rainy morning on July 11, 2024. It was the day after I felt like absolute garbage because I broke promises to myself the entire day before, and probably many days before that. I didn't move my body like I normally do. I ate terrible food. I bashed myself all day long with horrible negative self-talk. I was unmotivated. I was on edge with everyone. And I just felt terrible about myself. It honestly was a breaking point for my mindset. I was done. I needed a way to crawl myself out of this mindset mess. I just didn't know how. At this point in my life, I was the type of person who always strived to get better in many areas of my life. My life's motto was centered around learning and growing. If you aren't growing, then you're dying. I know that sounds a little extreme and harsh, but it's true. I want to continue to grow and learn in my life until the day that I die. If you saw the two pictures on my kitchen wall by Lindsay letters, you would see that I'm surely obsessed with growth. I didn't understand why I was blocking myself. All the things I practiced were out the window. Why was I doing this to myself when I knew better? Why couldn't I just follow through on the things I knew that made me feel good inside? No wonder I wasn't closer to the person I wanted to be. That day as I was sitting at my kitchen table journaling, I started to think about my life. I started to think of all the things I want in my life. I made to myself because I knew they would make me feel better inside, but I was choosing to do the opposite. They were broken promises to myself. I didn't get up to work out. I ate garbage. I chose to drink alcohol because other people wanted me to. I compared myself to others. I doom scrolled for no reason. I slacked on my relationships and wasn't all in with my kids and my husband. I stayed comfortable in my business and behind my computer screen. I was negative and felt like I was lacking in so many areas of my life. The list could go on, but I won't bore you with all of them. All these things had one thing in common. They all had the same result. I felt like crap, less than, and not the person I was supposedly striving to be. I began to write down promises in my notebook that I wouldn't break to myself. 10 things that would help me become the best version of myself. 10 things that if I did consistently could change my life for the better. I was hoping, I was praying. I first heard this quote, Don't Break a Promise to Yourself from Rachel Hollis. Her book was the first book I read about personal development and it changed my life. I couldn't believe that I had the ability to change my own life. I couldn't believe that I had the power inside myself to not feel so insecure. I had the power to create change in my life. I wasn't stuck. I struggled with anxiety and mild depression for years. I tried so many things, from therapy to antidepressant medicine, and nothing helped me. Personal development helped me find tools in my life that helped me grow and feel joy. And I will be forever grateful that I picked up that book. On that rainy day in 2024, I decided I'm not going to break these promises to myself for the next 90 days. I was done. I didn't want to feel this way anymore. After I wrote my list, I picked up my phone and I googled what is 90 days from July 11th, 2024. You are never going to believe what popped up. 90 days from July 11th was October 9th, 2024. You guys, that was my freaking birthday. I almost died. I dropped my phone after Googling and immediately started sobbing my eyes out. I'm about to cry right now if you haven't noticed. To me, it was a sign. A sign to do something with this. A sign that I was on the right path. I'm not sure about you, but I deeply believe in signs from God and the universe. I ask for them often and I'm always open to receiving them. If you're struggling in your life, ask for signs, look for them, and most importantly, be open to receiving them. After I wrote those promises and I dated the top with that end date, my birthday, I put them in a drawer next to my bed. I read those promises every morning for the next 90 days. I had struggles. I had wins. I had frustrations along the way. But I kept pushing through. And here's the thing. I wasn't perfect on those promises. Absolutely not. But I found one thing in common with all those promises. When I kept my promise, I felt that same feeling inside myself. I felt proud. I felt strong. I felt confident within myself. And when I fell short on those promises and I didn't keep them, I didn't like how I felt. I felt terrible. I didn't feel good inside. When I made my list of promises to myself and how I was done breaking them, I knew I had to share this journey. I knew that there had to be other women out there like me who struggled with broken promises to themselves. and then get mad at themselves and hate themselves and beat themselves up at the end of each day. The thing was, I didn't understand what I was doing. I didn't realize that I was breaking promises to myself. I just thought, I'm feeling like crap, and that's the way it was. The most powerful part of these promises is that as soon as you set your intention that you want to keep these promises to yourself, your life changes. Just putting those words out there that you want to feel good and you decide to start making decisions that are best for you and that you're done feeling that way, it changes your life. I strongly believe with every ounce of myself that it's our job as women to inspire and teach the next generation of girls. We are the role models. If we continually break promises to ourselves and beat ourselves up over and over again, how can we teach these girls to be strong, courageous, and confident? We can't. Imagine your child watching her mom feel confident, brave, strong, and motivated in her life. Imagine your child, her mom, committing to herself over and over again. Imagine your child watching her mom grow in so many beautiful ways. What do you think that child's destiny will be? Who do you think she will become? It would be life-changing. We need to start taking this role in our lives more seriously. It starts today, and it starts with you. I'm not saying promises are easy to keep. Absolutely not. This is not something that is easy. This is nothing but an uphill battle, girl. But the person you become on the other side of just deciding to keep those promises is life-changing. The life change happens as soon as you decide that you're worth the work. When you decide you're sick of guilt, the shame, the excuses, when you decide you don't want to be that person anymore, it's time to commit to your promises and become the person you want to be. It's time to get to work. I hope my story of keeping my promises motivates you and inspires you to keep promises to yourself. Use this as your guide to help you on your journey. I want you to feel good inside yourself, live a life you're proud of, and keep those promises you make to yourself. The other side of those kept promises is the life you've been waiting for. Okay, so that was part of the book that I'm writing. And it's all about creating promises for yourself so that you can live a more fulfilled life. I just found that when I was feeling so down and not feeling good inside myself, it was because I wasn't doing the things I knew that made me feel good. I was breaking promises to myself. And maybe you're thinking about your life and just thinking about the times where you just don't feel good inside or you're just not feeling motivated. And maybe you need to take a look and see what promises that you're breaking to yourself. So that is such a huge part of my life now, even though I'm not like... all in on these big promises that I want to keep to myself and never veering off of them. That's not true. I am just more intentional and conscious of what I'm doing in my life. And if I'm starting to feel really down, I'm kind of just do a check-in with myself and saying, okay, am I like doing the things I know that make me feel good? Am I breaking promises to myself? And Breaking a promise to yourself when you say that, it's just so powerful, I feel. It's just such a powerful feeling. And I really, really wanted to share that story with you because it was something that really changed my life. It really clicked inside of myself. And I wasn't always perfect. I don't want to say that I kept those promises for 90 days and never veered off because that's not true, because that's not real life. And... I didn't beat myself up. I tried not to beat myself up when I broke a promise. I wasn't like, oh my gosh, it's over. I'm done. I just got back up the next day and started again. And I started again because there were days and times where I didn't do what I wanted to do. I didn't keep that promise. So my book is kind of all about the promises that I made to myself and how I moved through them and what I learned from them and hopefully to help you create promises for yourself. Because this isn't about perfection. This isn't about living a perfect life on the outside or the inside. It's just about being more intentional and choosing that you want to take care of yourself, choosing that you want to have a great life. And if you do the things that you need to do to do that, then that's how you're going to have a great life. You're making a decision that I want to feel good inside. And if I do these things for myself, then I know that I'll feel good. That's what it's all about. And sometimes it takes work to get those promises done, like working out. It's not fun all the time. But after you're done doing it, you feel great. And that's what I wanted to share with you. So I hope that you liked it. that little reading from the book that I'm going to be writing about promises. And I hope that it was helpful for you. I hope that you can start maybe making some promises for yourself and falling through with them, even if it's just one. Try one promise that you want to keep for yourself and see if you can do it and see if it kind of changes the way you feel. And I hope that it does because promise setting this intention for yourself is going to really be helpful another thing that I did sometimes when I was doing this promise challenge for myself was I kind of journaled through it and not every day I wanted to journal through it every day but I didn't obviously I didn't have time to do that But I would write down some of the promises that I kept to myself. For instance, I went out to lunch with a really good friend and we usually get drinks and things like that, which is fun. But I kept a promise to myself that I wasn't going to drink alcohol. That was one of them. Because it makes me feel like crap. And I had to have some difficult... conversations with that and my friend was wonderful about it but it really makes some people feel uncomfortable when you don't want to do the things that you've always done and those kinds of situations were kind of hard for me but I did it and I didn't have any alcohol and it was great and it made me really feel good inside and strong and mentally I guess because I had to have those difficult hard conversations with people I didn't want to because not drinking is actually not as in quotes normal um you know you go out and you let's meet for a drink and things like that it's kind of hard when you are the person that doesn't um choose to drink and I'm not saying that I completely don't drink alcohol that's not true I just choose not to more than I do and it's just because it makes me feel good inside and it makes me feel clear headed and I can sleep at night and I don't feel groggy and all those other kinds of things but that's my own personal story and it doesn't mean it has to be a promise that you keep for yourself but that was one of my promises and sometimes you have to have those hard conversations so the book kind of goes into all the promises that I had for myself and things like that but this podcast is not about the book because it's not even close to being done, but that's okay. It's definitely a work in progress. And if you liked this podcast episode, I'd love to hear your thoughts about it because this was something that I wasn't sure I was going to even share, but I'm glad that I did. I'm glad that I read that. It wasn't perfect, but I really wanted to share with you that because when you look at your life and you You're not feeling your best. Maybe you're breaking promises to yourself. You know, maybe you're doing some things that you know you shouldn't be doing or want to be doing and you're doing them anyway. just taking a look at that can maybe give you some more perspective and maybe really help you dive deep into your life and how you're feeling. And all I want is for you to feel good and I want you to feel better and I want you to just love your life and to love yourself. That's what this is all about. So please let me know if you did love this episode over on my podcast that you can send me questions, you can give me ideas for next episodes, and you can just let me know if you liked this podcast episode. And if you did, I'd love for you to share it with someone, just one person, even if everyone that listened to shared with one person that could benefit from this, that would be so huge for me. I would really greatly appreciate it. If you have a woman in your life that, um, you think could benefit from this podcast and working on themselves and just getting a little bit of motivation and confidence, I would love for you to share it. And if you have an extra two minutes, head over to the show notes to rate and review because those things mean the world to podcasts. So don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so that you are aware of all the new episodes coming up. And I have a really great affirmation that I found all about promises that I wanted to share with you that I hope that you can take with you on your day. Keeping promises to myself helps me be the best version of me. So thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode. And as always, I will see you on next week's episode. I hope that you have a wonderful day and I will see you next week. Have a great day.