I am a recovering perfectionist, productivity chaser, and people pleaser, coaching women to disrupt old thought patterns, let go of behaviors that keep them stuck, and make their joy an everyday priority.
Can You Trust You? Or Do You Frequently Break Your Own Promises To Yourself?
Howdy, Huhu, Reader,
I bet you are pretty reliable. Keep your commitments. Show up on time. Bake the cake. Stay the extra hour. Bring the dish. Answer the call. Remember the birthday gifts. Host the holiday gathering.
I mean, within reason, right? We are perfectly imperfect humans. I have left friends stranded at the airport at night. Forgotten to pick up the groceries. And I have even been late to meetings. 😱
In general, people can count on you to show up for them, though.
Can you count on you to show up for you, though?
I read about a survey today where most respondents answered: “I trust myself when it comes to honoring commitments I’ve made to others. But not when it comes to commitments that I’ve made to myself.”
If you think that’s not a big deal, think again.
Unless we break a commitment to ourselves to keep another (say: skip exercising to get more sleep or sacrifice sleep for writing or reading all night), we are sending a detrimental signal to our minds: I am not relevant. I don’t deserve it. Others’ needs are more important.
Once or twice - fine. Life happens. Motivation is a fickle cat. And sometimes others’ needs ARE more urgent than ours.
But imagine somebody who breaks their promises repeatedly. Who doesn’t show up for you. Who never calls you back. Who didn’t bring the cake they promised. Again.
Hopefully, you don’t trust them to take care of your needs, to support your desires and dreams. Or with your cake supply chain.
But you see, our subconscious doesn’t trust us either if we keep neglecting our needs.
How is anyone supposed to take our dreams seriously if we don’t? How can we ever plan on reaching any summit if we don’t trust ourselves to even show up at the trailhead?
Like everything, the road to different actions starts with awareness. I remember the exact moment when I caught a story inside my head about my husband not taking my coaching business seriously. I realized quickly that it was ME who didn’t. It was ME, who treated it like a hobby. And I opened a business bank account that same week just to send a new and different signal to my brain: I AM IN. YOU CAN COUNT ON ME.
Here are today’s invitations for reflection:
🦩 How trustworthy are you when it comes to your commitments to yourself?
🦩 When was the last time you flaked on yourself?
🦩 What summits could you reach if this flakiness ended right now?
From my committed heart to yours,
Welcome to my Joy Letters
I am a recovering perfectionist, productivity chaser, and people pleaser, coaching women to disrupt old thought patterns, let go of behaviors that keep them stuck, and make their joy an everyday priority.
Guten Tag, Reader, “Alright, you know what’s coming…” I say to my client, and a big grin appears on her face. She wasn’t always this keen on answering the question I ask at the beginning of every coaching session: “What are you celebrating about yourself? What have you been proud of since we last spoke?”* “My intuition and the fact that I followed it,” she says I won’t tell you what she intuited, but I will tell you that her intuition was right on point, and the results are positively...
Guten Tag, Reader, It’s an afternoon in August, and I just brought my writing outside. The unseasonable temperateness of the temperatures makes it possible. (Did you know that temperature used to be a synonym for mild weather?) There is a lot of unseasonable going on right now. I might even say an unreasonable amount of unseasonableness: The Halloween Decorations are coming out in the temples of capitalism and today (August 6!) I even saw a Thanksgiving display. Apparently, it's time to plan...
Guten Tag, Reader, The German word Vorfreude roughly translates into pre-joy, and I just felt it tingling through my body, walking through downtown Missoula on a Saturday morning and anticipating the pastry case at Morningbirds Bakery. In my mind, I could taste the cinnamon roll; I felt the spongy texture in my mouth, and I imagined licking the sticky icing off my fingers. In that moment, I wasn't thinking about my to-do list or worrying about my local public radio station. My thoughts had...