confidence habits personal growth self-trust wellness

#482 - The Promises You Keep Breaking to Yourself

One of the biggest lessons I've been reminded of lately is this: most of us are very reliable when it comes to other people, but not nearly as reliable when it comes to ourselves.

In this episode, I want to explore why that happens and why rebuilding trust with yourself may be one of the most important things you ever do for your health, your happiness and your dreams.

If you've been feeling stuck, frustrated or disappointed that you haven't followed through on the things that matter most to you, I hope this episode reminds you that change doesn't begin with a huge leap. It begins with one small promise, kept consistently.

So grab your favorite cup of tea, your journal and a pen, and let's spend a little time together exploring how becoming the most reliable person in your own life could be the foundation for creating a life you truly love.

As always, I’d LOVE to hear what resonated most with you - so please share and let’s keep the conversation going in the Dream Life Podcast Facebook Group here.    

Have a wonderful week …and remember, it all starts with a dream 💛

Dream Life & kikki.K Founder

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TRANSCRIPT:

00:00
Kristina
Hi there and welcome back to your Dream Life podcast. I am so glad you're here with me today, and I hope wherever you are, you got a few minutes to really be here, because I want to go a little bit deeper than usual on something I think matters enormously. I want to talk about health. I want to talk about goals and about your dreams, but not in the way you might expect. I'm not going to tell you what to eat or how to move or how much sleep. You already know most of that. What I want to talk about is the real reason we don't do the things we know are good for us, the things we generally want to do.


00:51
Kristina
And after years of my own struggle with this, and I think most of us have certain areas we struggle with, so there's certainly areas where I'm thriving and I'm really making progress. But there are always a couple of things that I know that I could do better. So after my own struggle, but also walking alongside so many people through theirs in the Dream Life coaching program, I'm convinced it's not willpower. It's something much closer to the heart. So here is the idea at the center of everything I want to say today. You keep your word to everyone except the one person who needs it most, and that is you. Let me start with something I noticed about myself that I wasn't really comfortable admitting to myself.


01:39
Kristina
But I realized that I have been focusing so much on certain areas and I became quite reliable on a couple of things that were really important to me and a focus this year. So I want you to think about that for a moment because if your friend asked me for help, I would show up. If I gave my word to a colleague, I would move mountains to keep it. If there was a meeting in my calendar, I'd be there on time, prepared. If I was speaking in my coaching program, my word to other people was solid. People could count on me, and I was always showing up when I said I would. But the promises I made to myself, I broke them, sometimes quietly. And I. I would never dream of canceling on someone I respect three times in a row.


02:29
Kristina
And yet I did exactly that to myself, week after week, year after year in certain areas, and barely noticed I was doing it. And when I finally saw it clearly, I realized the one relationship I was treating as completely optional was a relationship to myself. And I see this so much in the Dream Life coaching program. So the first thing I want to explore with you is why? Why is it so easy to let ourselves down when we never do it to anyone else because I don't think we're lazy and I don't think we're weak. I think there are real reasons and naming them helps. The first reason is that no one is watching. When you break a promise to a friend, there's a face on the other end of it. There's a relationship at stake.


03:19
Kristina
When you break a promise to yourself, there's no one in that room. There's no one in the room. No raised eyebrow, no awkward conversation. The only person who knows, the only person who knows is you. And you are very good at letting yourself off the hook. And this is something I often say. I'm so good at negotiating myself. And that's why I often get really clear on what I want and I don't want to do too many things because if there are too many things that I am focusing on, I focus on none of it. The second reason is that there is no immediate consequence. If I skip my exercise one day, nothing bad happens. If I stay up late one night, the sky doesn't fall. The sky doesn't fall down. Fall down.


04:03
Kristina
The cost of breaking a promise the cost of breaking a promise to yourself is almost never felt today. It is felt slowly over months and years, which makes it terribly easy to keep postponing. And the third reason, the snaky one, is the word later. We don't actually decide to break the promise, we just decide to keep it later. I will start on Monday, but I'll get back on track next week. I'll look after myself once the busy season is over. And later, as I'm sure you have noticed, has a way of never quite arriving. None of that makes you a failure. It makes you human. But once you see the pattern, you can begin to change it. And changing it matters more than most of us realize. Which is what I want to talk about next. Here is what I have come to understand.


04:58
Kristina
Looking after yourself, your health, your energy, your own dreams and goals, is not really an information problem. We are droning information. And it's not really a willpower problem either. At its heart, it's a self trust problem. Because every single time you make a small promise to yourself and break it, you are quietly teaching yourself something you are learning. That you were to yourself doesn't really count, that you can't quite rely on you. And that lesson does far more damage than one missed walk or one late night ever could. It chips away quietly at the belief that you can do what you say you'll do and Watch where that shows up. It shows up the next time you have a big dream and a small voice says, well, you say you'll do things all the time and then you don't.


05:51
Kristina
So why would this be any different? I see it often. It shows up as hesitation, as second guessing, as talking yourself out of the bold thing before you even began. The broken promises feels small and harmless in the moment, but together they quietly teach you not to trust your own plans. And a person who doesn't trust their own words find it very hard to chase a big life. But here is the hopeful part and I really want you to hear this one because it changes everything. Reverse is just as true. Every time you make a small promise to yourself and keep it, you build trust. You teach yourself quietly and powerfully, I do what I say I will do. And that self trust becomes the foundation underneath everything else, underneath your big dreams, the brave decisions, the goals you are chasing.


06:52
Kristina
Because when you genuinely believe your own word, you make bolder commitments and you follow through on them in every part of your life. This is why I think looking after your health and your own dreams and goals is one of the highest leveraged things you can do. Not only for your body, but for the dream and goal itself. Though those matter enormously. But because these are the most visible places you practice keeping your word to yourself, they are the training ground. And the person who learns to keep promises to themselves becomes over time almost unrecognizable because they I finally believe they can count on themselves. And at the time of recording last night we had a coaching session and we have an accountability session and were talking about something completely different to this.


07:47
Kristina
But one thing that came up was that I did a hundred day running challenge, which actually turned out to a 200 day running challenge. And then Tanya, who has been on my podcast, was on live last night as well and she said that just showing up every single day, doing it and doing it daily and keeping that promise. And she said it was nothing about, you know, the fitness of the running. It was that kind of mental toughness and keeping that promise and it's just so incredibly powerful. And I think everyone got so inspired after hearing that again from Tanya last night. So let me give you five practical ways to start keeping your word to yourself again.


08:34
Kristina
Grab a pen and a journal if you can, because these are the things that genuinely work and the ones I come back to again and again. Number one, make the promise small enough that you can't fail. Of course we love a grand promise and this is something that I see over and over and also guilty when it comes to myself. And that is I'm going to completely overhaul everything starting on Monday. And I'll say this, particularly in January. And then the first time life gets in the way, we break it and the self trust takes another hit. So I want you to do the opposite. Make the promise so small it almost feels too easy. Or almost laughable. It might be a short walk to get moving. A couple of minutes of stillness before you open your laptop. One earlier night this week.


09:26
Kristina
The size of it generally does not matter. Keeping it is the entire point. Point. You are not trying to transform your life this week. You are trying to prove one thing, that you keep your word to yourself. And small wins. Do that beautifully. Number two, be specific. Because vague promises are already half broken. Here's a quiet trap. We make promises so vague they're impossible to keep. I'll exercise more, I'll rest more, I'll look after myself. What does that even mean? When would you have done it? A vague promise gives you a hundred ways to wriggle out of it. So make it really specific. Not I'll move more, but I'll walk around the block after lunch on Tuesday. Not I'll rest, but I'll be in bed by 9pm tonight. A specific promise is a keepable promise.


10:20
Kristina
You'll know exactly whether you kept it and that clarity is half the battle. Number three. Keep it the way you would keep a promise to someone you love. Imagine the promise wasn't to, but to your best friend or your child. You would move things around. You'll find a way. You would treat it as a non negotiable because letting them down is unthinkable. So give yourself that exact same respect. Your word to yourself deserves to be kept just as faithfully as you would to anyone else. Maybe even more faithfully. Because you are the one who has to live inside. The result of every promise you make and break. When you break one, repair it. Don't abandon the whole thing. This is again something that I say over and over again. And this might be the most important one. So please don't skip past it.


11:15
Kristina
You will break a promise. Sometimes life happens. The danger isn't the Miss Day. The danger is the story we tell ourselves about it. We miss one walk and decide, well, I've blown it. I'll start again next month, or even worse, next quarter or next year. And we throw away three good weeks because of one ordinary sleep. If you are moving it to the next month and obviously even worse if you move it to a quarter or sometimes I say year. Which is why we plan quarterly in the Dream Life coaching program. Because if you do have a bad quarter, we do not wait for another year. So here's the shift. One missed promise is a moment. It only becomes a pattern if you let it. The most self trusting people in the world are not the ones who never miss.


12:03
Kristina
They are the ones who miss and then simply begin again the very next day without the drama and without the guilt. Missing is human. Abandoning is the choice that actually cost you. So when you sleep, just return quietly, kindly the next day. That gentle returning is itself a form of keeping your word. 5. Watch the self Trust Compound Here is the beautiful each kept promise is like a tiny deposit on its own. It looks small, but they add up far faster than you would ever expect. After a week or two of keeping one little promise, something shifts inside you. You start to feel more solid, more like a person who follows through. And then you notice. And then you notice it spilling into other areas.


12:56
Kristina
The bigger commitments, the dreams you've been hesitating on, the things you've been telling yourself you would get onto one day. That's not a coincidence. That is self trust doing its quiet compounding work. You build it one small kept promise at a time. And that is why when I see people coming into the Dream Life coaching program and they struggle with this, I always encourage them to just start with one thing that they're going to do for the next quarter. And yes, most of us want to have much more than one thing because we're big dreamers and ambitious and we want to make the most of our precious life. I totally get that. But if we don't follow through and we keep breaking our promises to ourselves, focusing one thing and only one thing is magic.


13:45
Kristina
And I want to draw the thread all the way through. Because this is really what today is about. Your dream life, whatever it looks like for you, will ask you to back yourself, to make commitment and keep them when no one is watching. To believe your own word enough to bet on it. And you cannot fake that. You can't talk yourself into trusting yourself. You build it the same way you build anything that lasts in small, ordinary repeated moments. So the morning walk you keep, the early night you honour, the small promise you don't break. None of those are really about the walk or the sleep. They are about becoming a person who can be counted on by the one person who matters most. You and that person can build almost anything.


14:34
Kristina
So here is what I would love for you to try this week. Choose one small promise to yourself, just one, and make it specific and make it almost too easy. And then keep it every day this week, no matter what. Don't add a second one, don't make it bigger. And if you miss a day you already know what to do, you simply begin again next day without the guilt. All you are doing this week is proving one quiet thing for yourself, that you are someone who keeps their word. And notice how you feel by the end of the week. I think you'll be surprised how much steadier, how much more solid you feel from something so small. Before I go, here's your question to sit with this week. Write it down today if you can.


15:23
Kristina
Where in your life have you stopped trusting your own word? And what is one small specific promise you could keep this week to start rebuilding it? Sit with that for a moment because way back to looking after yourself and the way toward every dream sitting on top of that, rarely start with one big dramatic change. It starts with one small promise kept and then another. And then another. And here is one more thing I learned along the way after doing this both alone and alongside others, keeping promises to yourself is so much easier when you are not doing it on your own. When there are people beside you gently expecting you to show up and celebrating with you when you do something powerful happens. When your private promises become shared ones.


16:16
Kristina
I've seen this over and over again and that is a huge part what we create inside the Dream Life Coaching. And in August our whole focus is on your health and your energy. The very training ground we talked about today. A small group of people learning to keep their word to themselves together week by week. The August intake only has 10 spots available and if it feels like the right kind of support for you, I would love for you to be in the room. If it feels right for you, just head over to dreamlivestartshere.com and as always, there's no pressure at all from me, only an invitation. So this week, become the most reliable person in your own life. Again, make one small specific promise to yourself and keep it. And when you miss, begin again the next day.


17:09
Kristina
Because almost everything you dream of is built on top of that one quiet thing. Learning to trust your own word again. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. As always, I'll be back on Monday with another Monday morning motivation episode. I'll see you then.

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