Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 273 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! Thanks for hanging out with me today, if you’re new, welcome! I would love to hear from you about any topics you love and wish I would cover or simply to say hello. Email me here
Have you ever had someone tell you they would do something and then it didn’t happen? t if it happened regularly you would not count on them any longer, you probably would not makes plans with them at all after a while. How about someone that you trust tells you something that turns out to not be true? They lost credibility didn’t they? If it happens more than once, you simply stop believing them. Every time someone doesn’t keep their word or they break a promise they lose trust don’t they? Of course they do. They eventually lose all credibility and now the relationship isn’t one you value or trust.
So why do we consistently make promises to ourselves and then don’t keep them? Let’s be honest, we’ve all done it. Im going to work out 3 times this week and it doesn’t happen, You tell yourself you aren’t drinking alcohol during the week but you do. You promise yourself that you will be on time for every appointment today and then you still show up 15 minutes late. If a friend did this we would question our friendship, so why do we think it’s ok to break promises to ourselves? We’ve all done it. And most of the time we justify our way out of it by saying well, I will just do it next week, I am giving myself grace this week, or I deserve to have a drink even though I said I wouldn’t because I have had a bad day so it’s ok….
For the last year and a half or so I have pretty much been gluten, dairy and grain free. My joints are so much better, the problems I was having have gone away like my hands itching and being what I would call crunchy. Anyway, I read ingredients on every single thing I eat. Do I miss some of the things I used to eat? Sure. Is it worth it to go back and eat that way again? No. So there is a brand that has been really helpful because it is yummy and only uses ingredients I can eat. The brand is Siete. You may have heard of them. They are pretty popular now.
Anyway they came out with a kettle style potato chip that has three ingredients, potatoes, avocado oil and sea salt. And I gotta tell you they taste SPECTACULAR. Maybe because I haven’t had real chips for a year but they are so good. They are still not HEALTH FOOD, they are processed so I only buy them as a treat. I was on my last day of self isolation due to recovering from Covid. Well I had bought some of these chips that were salt and vinegar flavored, oh man they were good. Eric was gone on a trip and I was in the house all alone and I knew it was going to be a problem for me to not eat the whole bag because it was like 11 am in the morning and I had eaten enough chips already.
So I decided I needed to pull out one of my tricks so I wouldn’t eat them all. That trick is to promise myself that I will not eat anymore chips today. Now a little of a backstory, I have decided as a rule that I will never make a promise to myself that I don’t keep. This has been for a while, so I sort of begrudgingly made the promise because I knew I would want more chips later but I also knew I would keep my promise, so I made the promise to myself and went about my day. There were a few times during the day while I was busy around the house that I thought about those chips but then I said nope you promised so I didn’t eat them.
Fast forward to the evening. I started really wanting some of those chips, my brain kept trying to find a way to work around my promise, at one point, my brain offered that well it’s technically not day anymore it’s evening so we could eat the chips and it wouldn’t necessarily be breaking our promise. Our brains are so sneaky!!! I actually laughed and said NO! That is definitely still breaking the promise and I refuse to do it.
So what was going on with me? Getting to the root of that is really important. So I had been in the house for a week. I had cabin fever and I was bored. So my brain was looking for comfort. My brain was thinking hey all we have to do to feel better is to get a hit of dopamine. Instead of feeling my feeling of boredom, I was going to distract myself either with chips or with social media. Either one of those will do the job of getting a hit of dopamine. But both of them come with a price…..One, Eating the chips, I break my promise to myself and ultimately feel worse than boredom would feel and the other, I distract myself temporarily knowing the feeling of boredom is going to pop back up and how often do you get off social media feeling better about your life? Studies have shown not very often. So it’s a temporary fix.
You see we beat ourselves up, thinking we have no willpower, when really we just have some emotions we are afraid to feel. You don’t have a willpower problem, you have a brain that is constantly wanting to protect you with comfort and distraction. Awareness of that fact of your brain is powerful. Because guess who is in charge of that brain as soon as you are aware of what’s going on? You are.
Ive gotten really good at noticing my thoughts. I realized I had a boredom and a cabin fever problem, not a willpower problem! It’s actually ok to be bored, Boredom actually gives me downtime to think and create, that’s not a bad thing. That can actually work in my favor and as far as cabin fever goes, why do I have to settle for cabin fever? It’s sunny and Kenzie my little yorkie I think had it too so we got in the car and went for a drive to get into the sunshine which always makes me feel better.
You see, getting to the root problem, was crucial. It wasn’t about the chips, I wasn’t hungry at all. I have proven to myself I don’t have a willpower problem so recognizing the emotions that my brain was trying to protect me from was eye opening. Had I just given in, my primitive brain would have been back in control and off I go on autopilot eventually feeling way worse than boredom and cabin fever. So we can make all the promises in the world to ourselves but until we become aware of the reasons behind why we consistently break those promises to ourself, we’ll be chasing our own tail.
So I think we should all stop telling ourselves we have a willpower problem. I think we should all realize it’s not a trust issue with ourself, it boils down to our brain and how it was designed to work. It was designed to protect us from life threatening situations. That’s why it is so tempting to head towards comfort. Our brains are actually hardwired to protect us from bad things. These days, most of the bad things are feelings.
You can feel stress and not die
You can feel bored and not die
You can feel anxious and not die
These are often the root of why we don’t keep promises to ourself. Our brain tells us it will be better to eat this donut then feel stressed. It’s better to drink this glass of wine then feel anxious. It will be better to get on social media then feel bored. These things can be very comforting at the time but the long term affects can be pretty negative on our life, our relationships and our careers.
So I’m not letting us off the hook by saying it’s our brains fault. Im just reminding us that we control our brain. So the next time, you make a promise to yourself and your brain starts coming up with reasons not to keep it, ask yourself what is my brain trying to protect me from. That comfort you’re seeking is a temporary fix, but the feeling you’re avoiding is also temporary and it will keep coming back until you address it. When I addressed my boredom, I realized that it actually works in my favor to be bored sometimes because it gives my brain a chance to create and when I addressed my cabin fever, I realized I was keeping myself captive because I was perfectly capable of going for a drive, which is what I did. Instead of feeding my feelings, I felt them. And once I felt them, I realized that it wasn’t about the chips at all.
My challenge to you is to think about when you struggle the most with trusting yourself to keep a promise you’ve made, is it when you’re super stressed? When you’re bored? When you’re anxious? More than likely the answer is yes, being aware of that is really important. Those feelings are temporary. They will go away that’s why its so important to let them be there and not to have to react to them.
Being able to allow your emotions is the only way to live a fully wildly successful life. I love you guys, ill talk to you in a few days.
