Pinky Promise yourself

I’ve been mulling over this idea for a few weeks around promises and accountability.

This morning I was out on my run, and I absolutely love where my mind wanders when I’m running. While ‘stillness’ is something I definitely need to work on, between the busy-ness at home, and crowd control when I’m out of the house, stillness gets bumped for exercise every time.

I was wondering what made me commit to my run this morning, was it accountability? Sure, I’d told my personal trainer during the week it was going to happen (Fit M.U.M, she is one tough trainer) and being accountable in life and leadership is something I value so highly.

I had a million reasons not to go this morning. I’d been up feeding multiple times last night, only to wake up for the day at 4:30am cluster feeding and hearing ‘H-man’ (the three year old) messing around in his room. I was feeling tired, and a bit sore from some stability work I’d done at Pilates yesterday (ha! Talk about #fitspo… kidding, obviously). But I think it was mostly because I really needed some mind wondering time.

I recalled a conversation I had with H-man on Thursday night during the bedtime routine, he was just hanging on, and on, and on, and I said, I’d go and come back, and he asked if I promised to come back. I said I ‘pinky promise’ and taught him how to do a pinky promise (we linked pinkys) and that meant it was a really special promise. Of course I went back into him (once he was asleep) because it’s so important to me for my children to trust me, and know what my word is true.

And while I was running this morning I was thinking about that conversation, pinky promises, or really promises in general. When did we, as adults stop keeping promises to ourselves? So many times I’ve said to myself I would do something, and then I haven’t. Exercise, eat better, get fitter, yell less etc etc etc

This idea I’ve been mulling over, we’re so committed to making New Years resolutions that inevitably fizzle out come March, or even February (me).

But what if you made just one… just one ‘resolution’

Not to break a promise to yourself.

We’ve all heard to schedule exercise/me-time and things in like an appointment, but I find it incredibly easy to ‘reschedule’ appointments. However, I hold promises in high regard, absolutely promises I make to other people, but at some point not promises to myself.

From here on in, I don’t need to wait for fireworks or a countdown to midnight (because I’ll be in bed with 4 babies squared away, obviously), I’ll commit today, to keeping promises I make to myself.

Maybe I’ll be more likely to prioritise the things that are really important to me, and less likely to take on things that aren’t in alignment with what I really want to be doing.

What will you promise yourself this week?