Promises

I think often times we like to make promises to ourselves - "I will wake up early tomorrow" - "I will go to the gym tomorrow" - "I will eat less tomorrow" - " I will call that old friend tomorrow". I almost think these are the worst kind of promises to break - the ones to ourselves. It ends up turning into self sabotage. I am a pro at these promises and when I break them I just feel bad about myself.

I came to a crossroads this week. I had told myself that I was going to take these 4 weeks in between chemo and surgery to really get in shape - step up my game. I wanted to be in the best shape possible so that I could heal better. The problem was that over the last 4 months I finally learned how to slow down. I have now come to enjoy the quiet days. On top of that the task of getting back into shape seemed so incredibly daunting (none of you feel that way do you?). So, I felt that moment. The one where I could choose to actually do what I told myself I would do or come up with an excuse and put it off another day. I chose to honor the promise I made to myself. More than feeling good about pushing my body - I felt elated about keeping myself in check. It gave me a high that lasted all day. Today I woke up and did it again - and it felt good again.

I think we tend to make these promises with a grain of salt when we really should be thinking hard about our goals and understand all that they entail. I think we should start small - goals we know we can achieve. Once we feel the satisfaction of applying ourselves there is nothing that can stop us. The goals become bigger - the outcome better. This is living - not waiting around for life.