35: The Real Reason You Break Promises to Yourself - and the HACK to stop!

Most people think they have a discipline problem.

But what if that’s not actually the issue?

In this episode of (re)Parenting Radio, Lisa Watson explores what’s really happening when you don’t follow through on the promises you make to yourself—and why it has nothing to do with willpower.

This episode breaks down the exact moment where change is either reinforced… or lost—and how subtle, unconscious patterns take over without you even realizing it.

More importantly, Lisa shares a powerful shift in how to respond in that moment—not by forcing yourself, but by learning how to lead yourself.

Because this isn’t about discipline.

It’s about the relationship you have with yourself.

Inside this episode:

• Why breaking your word to yourself isn’t a discipline problem
• The “micro-moment” where old patterns take over
• How your subconscious programming overrides conscious decisions
• The difference between awareness and leadership
• How to stop abandoning yourself (without forcing or shaming)
• Why your inner child stops trusting you—and how to rebuild that trust
• The connection between personal habits and relationship patterns

Key Takeaway:

You don’t need to get rid of resistance to follow through. You just need to stop letting it be in charge.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Reparenting Radio. I'm Lisa Watson, Architect of Human Transformation. This is a space for leaders, parents, and anyone ready to break old patterns, regulate their nervous system, and show up in their life with clarity and self-trust. If you're ready to change the way you lead, love, and live, you're in the right place. Let's begin. Hello and welcome back to Reparenting Radio. Today there's something that I've been noticing, something that I am finally seeing more clearly, and I honestly couldn't be happier about it. Because and I know you guys are going to be super excited about this one, because what we're talking about is basically discipline and changing habits. And I know that there's a habit that you either want to start or let go of, like most of us do. And somehow maybe you find yourself keep getting dragged back into those old behaviors and you just don't know how to make it stop. Well, this week or last week, the past few weeks, I'm pretty sure I cracked the code on it, and I'm really, really excited about it. Because it's not what you intend that shapes your life, it's what you do in the moments where you're about to pull, be pulled off course that do. I talk about discipline and consistency a lot about follow-through. And I know that most people assume that if I'm not doing what I said I would do, or you know, we are not doing what we said we'd do, then we just must not be disciplined enough. But what I've been seeing very clearly in myself the past few weeks, and honestly, almost every client that I work with is that breaking your own promises is not a discipline problem. It's actually a pattern problem. Here's what's actually happening, okay? You decide, let's say you decide on something and you mean it. You're aligned with this decision in the moment. You say something like, I'm gonna start doing this to take better care of my body, or I'm gonna stop doing that. I'm gonna show up differently at work, I'm gonna show up differently with my partner, maybe with my kids, and and I'm just not going to react in the way that I have been reacting anymore. I'm, you know, resolute, I'm resolved, this is what I'm doing, right? And in that moment, you mean it. It's real. There is no part of you that is lying. You have all of the best intentions. But then something else enters the room. And this is the part where I have found that we just don't slow down enough to really notice. But I have. I've slowed down enough to notice, and what I have found is incredible. It's not loud, it doesn't announce itself. It doesn't say, hey, I'm right here, I'm your subconscious mind, your subconscious patterns, and I'm here to sabotage you. You ready? No, that would be way too convenient. It does not come with bells and whistles and loud noises. Instead, it's very subtle. It's quick, it's familiar, I'll even call it tricky. It might sound like uh just this once. Come on, you've had a long day, you deserve it. It's not that big of a deal if we don't do it. We can start or resume again tomorrow, no problem. Or sometimes it doesn't sound like anything, and boom, you just do it. You end up doing that exact thing that you said you weren't gonna do, or that you don't do the thing that you said you were gonna start doing. Not next week, not later, but right then and now. And maybe you catch yourself thinking, wait, didn't I just decide something different? That moment right there is the moment where your conscious decision and your subconscious mind collide. And if you don't see it, what happens is the old programming wins every time. So recently, the past few weeks, instead of trying to be more disciplined, I started practicing more curiousness with myself. In fact, I turned it into a game because I know that our inner child loves games, and in fact, our ego loves games too. So these past couple weeks, when I would decide what I was gonna start doing or not doing, I would then ask myself, what part of me is going to try to stop me? Let's say I decided I wanted to start going for a walk every night before I go to bed. It's like about a mile and a half walk. I walk down to the bottom of the hill that I live on and right back up to the top. And I've noticed that when I do that, I sleep a lot better. So I've just decided I'm just gonna do that every night. And then I say to myself, what part of me is going to try to stop me? And then I'm waiting for it. Not if there's a part of me that's gonna try to stop me, but what part or which part of me will try to stop me? Because something always does. And what I noticed was patterns. Sometimes it was my body just wanting more rest, more comfort, wanting ease, you know, wanting what was familiar and good, like just crawling into bed right now. Sometimes it was my inner child reaching for something soothing or known, maybe something safe, like, oh, it's too chilly, we don't need to do that right now, or we don't want to catch a cold. And sometimes it was my ego just trying to keep me in the identity that it knows and understands. Because change, even good change, can feel like a threat to your system, to your programming, to the algorithms that have been downloaded into you. And sometimes it's just autopilot. I mean, there's no voice, there's no thought, just blind action. Boom, you found yourself, find yourself not doing or doing the thing, you know, opposite of what you wanted to do. And the more that I watched this, the more I realized that it's not random at all. It truly is simply a system. And when you start seeing it as a system, as a pattern, it stops being personal. And you stop saying things like, what's wrong with me? or shaming yourself in some other way. Instead, you simply start asking yourself, what program is running right now and trying to get me to stay safe and looping the patterns that feel comfortable to me. That recognition that something is going to try to knock you off course is the extra space that you need to be ready for. Like you need to be ready for the pattern that's gonna stop you. You need to be waiting and listening for it. This is the shift that changes everything. Because now you're not trying to fight yourself. Instead, you're in observation mode. And when I started to do this, something really powerful happened. The moment before I broke my word, I took off those pants and was just about to jump in bed and not put the sneakers on, not go for the walk. It happened so fast that if I wasn't paying attention, I could have missed it. But I could feel it coming. I could feel it like a wave. I could hear the thought, I could feel the pull, I could notice the shift in my body. And instead of being inside of it, like in the wave or under the wave, the awareness, the curiosity that I have created the space that allowed me to choose in that moment. Not perfectly and not every time, but more often than before. And here's where the shifted from awareness into something more powerful. Because noticing the interruption is one thing, but what you do with that information, that's everything. Everything is just information. Essentially, what I did was I stopped trying to override the feeling and the thought, and I just started to allow them. I allowed the resistance to have a voice. I allowed myself to listen to the I don't feel like it, the part of me that didn't want to follow through. Because that part is real and it's not wrong, it's not bad, and it's not something to get rid of. It's part of us, it's our programming. We adopted it for a reason, and we can't just pretend like we don't need it, because there's a piece of us that still thinks it needs that old pattern of behavior. So instead of saying, no, we're just not doing that, just push through, just go for the walk. Just, you know, don't be silly and come on, don't be lame, whatever you would normally say to yourself. I started responding to that part of me like I would to a child. And I said, okay, I hear you. I can feel that you don't want to do this right now. I can feel that you're tired or resistant or frustrated or hungry. I know this would really bring you comfort right now to not do this or to do something else. And then without dismissing it and without arguing it, I didn't try to fix it. Instead, I led. And I said, it's okay that you don't want to do it. But guess what? We still are. We're still gonna do it. Not from force, not from punishment, not from shame, but from leadership, from that grounded place of, I know what's best for us. I know where we're going, and it's my job to guide us there. It's my job to keep us safe and healthy. And something really important happens when you do this. You actually stop abandoning yourself in two ways. One, you stop giving into the pattern, and two, you stop overpowering yourself. Instead, you stay connected, you allow the feeling, and you still follow through. That is reparenting. It's not shut up and do it. It's not okay, fine, we won't. It's not, come on, don't be dumb or silly or lazy or whatever you might say to yourself. It's I hear you and I've got this. I'm here to look out for us and for what is best for us. And what I noticed is that the resistance, it didn't get louder. It actually softened because it wasn't being ignored and it wasn't being shamed, it was being acknowledged and then it was being led. And this is honestly the most important part because you don't need to get rid of the resistance to follow through. You just need to stop letting the resistance be in charge. Let's look at this from another angle, from the eyes of a child, like a parent and child. When a parent says to a child, let's go, we're leaving right now. Come on. Are you ready? But the parent isn't actually ready. Or the parent says, Dinner's ready, but it's actually not. The kid comes and it's not even on the plate yet. Over time, the child learns something subtle. It learns through its parents' modeled behavior, through that conditioning, it's learning that now doesn't actually mean now. So going forward, when the parent gives direction to the child, they don't move. Not because they're being difficult, but because they're very intelligent avatars that listen to the information that their reality is mirroring back to them, and they're learning that now means later. Now doesn't mean now. Even when mom says now, that's not actually what's happening. The child isn't saying, oh, now doesn't mean now. The child is saying, oh, now means in five minutes. Like that becomes their definition of that word. Remember, children are having their whole operating system downloaded at this age. The way you respond and the words that you use become the programs that they run on. Well, your inner child works the same exact way. Every time you say to yourself, I'm going to do this, and you don't, that part of you is learning. It's learning, I don't think we're actually gonna follow through with this. And after a while, it stops responding. Not out of defiance, but out of lack of trust. And that is why this work matters so much. Because whether you are parenting a child or reparenting yourself, it's the same relationship. Two sides of the same coin. Your inner child, your ego, your body-mind, they don't listen to what you say. They learn from what you consistently do. And once I saw that in my own psyche, in my own self, a whole nother layer clipped. This mechanism plays out in our relationships with others too, not just our relationships with ourselves. How many times have you resolved to be more patient, to listen better, to show empathy, or get curious with someone, and instead you find yourself saying or thinking, oh gosh, I did it again. That's not how I meant to come across. And you meant it when you decided you wanted to change that behavior. You weren't trying to hurt this person or be rude or whatever it is maybe that you were doing. You weren't trying to come off a certain way, but a tone, a reaction, a sharpness, a withdrawal, it happened anyway. And afterwards, you're sitting there thinking, I, yeah, I did it again. Shit. Same pattern. Your intention came from your conscious mind, but your impact, it came from what's wired underneath, from what has been practiced, from the programs that we're running to keep us safe, from what's familiar, from what your nervous system knows, from the way your nervous system is wired under pressure. So whether it looks like breaking a promise to yourself or reacting in a way that you didn't mean to someone else, the moment right before is what matters so much. Because this is where change actually happens. This is where new neural pathways are formed. They're formed in the present moment, not later, not when you reflect, not when you promise to do better next time. But right there in the moment is the doorway. And most of us we miss it because we're not looking for it. But once you start seeing it, you realize this is where your power lives. Not in forcing change, not in controlling yourself, but basically in being prepared for opposition. When you prepare yourself for that opposition that's coming, you're more prepared. So if you want to play with this this week, keep it simple. Pick just one thing. And instead of trying to force yourself, get curious. Get curious to what shows up right before you're either gonna do or not do that thing. You know, you said you're not gonna eat chocolate, and you find yourself opening the drawer where the chocolate is, you're reaching for it. Pay attention to what is happening here. What's going on, and then have a conversation. Take back leadership then and now. You've got to do it in the present moment. But when you see it, you don't fight it. You just don't let it choose for you. You choose anyway. Be the leader, be the parent of yourself, acknowledge the discomfort and do it anyway. Kids love boundaries, and they love to know that they're being cared for. It makes them feel safe. Boundaries keep us safe, even if it means discomfort. And it may not seem like it from a conscious perspective that you know kids like boundaries, but they do. Because behind the fussing is a child that actually feels cared for and safe. And your inner child is no different. We heal in safe relationships. And yes, this means the relationship that we have with ourselves. That's how this shifts. Not by becoming someone new overnight, but by becoming aware of the moments when a part of you is trying to choose the same old pattern out of comfort, out of safety, out of knowing. And slowly, moment by moment, you take that power back. In the present moment, you rewire your brain. And with repetition, those new neural pathways will become stronger than the old ones. And before you know it, you will have reprogrammed yourself. And before you know it, you will have reprogrammed yourself. And if you're wanting some reminders of how to consistently practice this, I've put together a few free resources for you. I have a quick start guide to reparenting yourself, I have a conscious parenting guide, and I also have a guide for leaders on what to look for before they scale. And the links to download all of these directly, you can find them right in the show notes. Alright, so that's what I have for you today. And if this shifted something for you, I would really love to hear your questions, your comments, your experiences with it. You can email me at info at reparent-yourself.com. I always reply. I am so grateful for you. Thank you for being here. And I will talk to you next week. Thank you for listening to Reparenting Radio. If today's conversation supported you, take a moment to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who knows they were made for more than the patterns that they inherited. If you're ready for serious inner work and real transformation, personally or professionally, you can explore my leadership pathways at Lisa-Watson.com. And if you're raising little ones alongside your own healing, you'll find my children's books at awakentheone.org. Until next time, stay grounded, stay open, and keep reparenting the parts of you that are ready to come home to their authenticity.