29d (edited) • Daily Self-Cultivation
A Promise to Your Future Self
What is the Promise You Are Willing to Make to Your Future Self?
You tell yourself that you want to be in great shape, have a great relationship, do work you love, feel good about yourself and your life.
These are goals for your future self. But in the moment, you too often betray that promise to your future self. You eat like crap, you isolate if you are not in a relationship, or you yell at your current partner if you are in one, you scroll instead of taking the steps to that better career, you beat yourself up.
What will change that pattern? You make a real promise, a commitment, to that future self. Not the kind of promise you make to get out of getting into trouble with your mom. Not the kind of promise you make to someone to avoid feeling uncomfortable saying no. Not the kind of promise you make with your fingers crossed behind your back.
Those kinds of promises are not real commitments. A real commitment is inviolable. Making a vow to be monogamous means you don’t screw around. Making a commitment to be there for your kid means you show up every day. Making a commitment to a job means you show up on time and put in a day’s work.
Making a promise to your future self should be on the same level. If you are unwilling to keep a commitment to yourself, don’t say it.
If you say I may, or I’ll try, that probably means you won’t. But be honest, don’t promise if you really mean I probably won’t.
You may be afraid to make a commitment for many reasons, the first of which is you’ve rarely if ever been able to keep the promises you’ve made to yourself before.
But people who have never been consistent in their lives make promises to their future selves and keep them.
Alcoholics who drink for decades stay sober for the rest of their lives. Cheaters become trustworthy. Criminals become honest citizens. People who chronically fail, succeed. It doesn’t happen all the time for everyone, but it does happen.
It begins with this first commitment: I’m going to do whatever it takes to enable me to keep these promises to myself. I’ll get whatever help I need. I will surrender my will to a higher power embodied in the voices of those that I can trust to help me. If I do nothing else, I will keep those promises I make to myself.
When you break a promise, you hurt the person you made that promise to. That would be you. But if if you keep that promise, a commitment that you follow through on no matter what, that is when you will flourish and find inner peace. And there’s nothing better than that.
So, are you willing to make a promise, a solemn vow, to your future self? If so, what is it? What are you willing to do to be able to keep it? If you are ready to do that, declare it publicly here. You can do that. All you have to do is say yes.
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A Promise to Your Future Self
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