What Prevents Us From Keeping Our Promises?
What exactly are promises ? Imagine a New Year’s resolution, for example. Why do we want to make a promise when we start something new? How long does the motivation stay in us to keep our promises? It seems that the beginning of a new phase is something that motivates us the most to reflect on things we would like to change. Do you have any promises for the coming year?
If we put aside such popular promises as losing weight or quitting smoking; promises that people repeat every year but rarely fulfill; There are also other types of promises. These can be more personal and have more meaning. How do we meet them? One of the keys is to have your promises written down in a visible place. You should look at them throughout the year and turn them into concrete actions. In other words, next to the promises, write down the steps you need to take to achieve them.
Transforming desires into concrete actions is what gives weight and consistency to our promises. In turn, this means that they are transformed into the seeds that we want to be able to harvest. Therefore, having them in the field of view means that we do not forget them. This also prevents them from slipping down our priority list.
The University of Scranton in Pennsylvania has conducted a study that shows that 92% of us fail to keep our promises. Above we mention some of the reasons why this happens. Basically, it is about general planning without concrete actions and a lack of clear visualization of what we want to achieve.
Motivation: the engine to keep our promises
A secret behind how you get what you want lies in your motivation and not losing it over time. Am I really doing what I decided to do? Do I have the tools to achieve my goal? Is it up to me to get what I want? Is there any real possibility that I will be able to achieve my goal?
An important part of being able to answer these questions lies in motivation. If I see myself as capable, if what I am chasing is something I want, if I can see myself reaching the goal I have fought so hard to reach, and if I plan small milestones every day and can see a daily progressing, even if the progress is small; then I will feel rewarded for the effort I put in to overcome any obstacles that arise along the way.
Personal motivation is the best energy to get closer to what you want. If you make a list on which you put time and hope and which you then just forget about, it will only create frustration and damage your self-esteem. Other important parts to avoid your list becoming just another decoration on the wall or hidden in a box is that you are consistent, realistic (adapted to opportunities and resources) and have a deeper, uniform goal that transcends all other goals. This is about personal development.
What promise should I make for next year?
Here’s a tip: drop everything you’ve already tried to promise but haven’t achieved. Perhaps the reason why you did not fulfill these promises is that you lack sufficient strength and desire, or that you did not make the goal concrete and tangible enough. Maybe you did not succeed in fulfilling certain goals because they were too general and you did not realize that in order to fulfill a promise, it must have some connection to reality.
As a suggestion, you can set a goal to find something to smile about every day, and not just make the promise “to be happier”. Or instead of making the promise “to lose weight”, promise to eat only sweets on the weekends and to do some exercise three times a week.
Do something in the coming year that you have never done before. It does not have to be big, like jumping from an airplane, climbing a high mountain or visiting a country on all the different continents of the earth. It’s enough to just do an activity you’ve never done before, like tasting some new kind of food, talking to new people, walking along paths you’ve never walked before, or watching movies you’ve never given a chance to.
The magic of promises is that they invite us to become better people and to try new challenges. So what promises do you have now to make for the coming year?
