Step #1 to Making Changes and Achieving Goals: Keep Commitments to Yourself

A friend recently asked me, “How can I curb my sugar addiction and stress eating?”

These are two important (and pretty common) questions! And if you’re struggling with these, or anything else you’d really like to do better at or change, it can be so frustrating. (I’ll be diving deeper into sugar addiction and stress eating in future posts because they are such common struggles).

Now back to these two questions…You know what? The answers to these two questions really have nothing to do with sugar or stress eating.

What???

It’s true!

Let’s talk about the first step for making any change, no matter if that’s to curb a sugar addiction, manage stress eating, lose weight, work out more, spend more time with family, start a business, build a better relationship, better manage distractions…ANYTHING you want to accomplish or ANYTHING you’re struggling with.

Step #1: It’s all about integrity. It’s not about integrity with others (although that is SO important), but it’s about integrity with ourselves. When we tell ourselves we will do something, we do it! We keep those commitments we make to ourselves. No matter what.

We’ll move heaven and earth to keep a commitment to someone else, but when it comes to keeping those commitments to ourselves—even when they’re centered around something that is SO important to us and that we want so badly, our success rate often isn’t that great.

Or, we might keep that commitment for a while, but then we stop.

Why?

For whatever reason, we don’t value our integrity with ourselves as much as we value our integrity with others. But you know what? If you can’t have integrity with yourself, it’s going to be very difficult to accomplish any goal.

So, how can you increase your chances of achieving any goal?

Keep the commitments you make to yourself—no matter what!

It sounds simple, although the implementation can be tough. That’s why a lot of people don’t achieve their goals. Even if they really want to.

So, how is this possible when life can so often get in the way, no matter it that’s through our own choices or through what just happens to us in life?

That commitment has to be so small and simple that you can keep it 100% of the time.

That commitment can also be called a promise (get additional insights into promises and integrity here), but no matter what you call it, it has to be super simple.

Here’s what I mean by simple. And yes, some of these examples are more health and fitness-related because that’s my area of expertise, but hopefully, you get the idea:

• I will work out 5 minutes a day.
• I will drink 32 oz of water every day.
• I will eat a serving of vegetables every day.
• I will write down 1 thing I’m grateful for every day.
• I will write for 5 minutes a day.
• I will really listen to my spouse for 3 minutes a day.
• I will spend undistracted time with my kids for 5 minutes a day.
• I will limit social media to X minutes at a time.

But…you’re wondering (I can hear you!), “How can this SO simple thing help me achieve my goal?”

When you keep commitments to yourself, you start to build integrity with yourself—you build trust in yourself that you WILL do what you tell yourself you will do. No matter what. And as you build integrity and trust with yourself, and as you build commitment upon commitment, you’ll be able to accomplish any goal!

But here’s the deal:

As you’re working to build integrity with yourself, only work on one commitment at a time.

But…you ask, “How can I achieve a goal with only one small commitment?”

Think about it: Every January 1st millions of people have their list of New Year’s Resolutions ready to go. Notice that’s plural: resolutions. And if you’re a resolutions maker, you tell yourself, “THIS year will be different!”

But by mid February, and maybe even sooner, most people have already failed at keeping these resolutions, and 80% fail at some point during the year.

Those are not great odds.

Rachel Hollis shares a powerful example of the importance of focusing on one goal at a time in her book, Girl, Wash Your Face: When you throw some pebbles into a lake, you get a bunch of ripples. You do get some action, but not enough action to make a difference. But when you drop a boulder into that same lake, you get some major action! And while you’re only focusing on one commitment at a time (the boulder), that action from that boulder does affect the rest of the lake—the other areas in your life. But those other areas aren’t the focus. Yet.

So…to summarize:

• One commitment at a time.
• Make it super simple, almost silly simple.

And here’s an important key to nailing that goal: Don’t add another commitment until that first one is so engrained in you that you don’t even have to think about. You just keep it.

It’s a part of you.

Now back to my friend’s question: “How can I curb my sugar addiction and stress eating?”

Like I said, the answers really don’t have anything to do with sugar or stress eating.

The first answer has to do with keeping that first commitment to yourself that relates to sugar or stress eating.

So, how can that look for these struggles? Here are some ideas, and tweak these to best fit you and your life and your goals. And remember, this is a process, and it won’t happen overnight. But it will be so worth it!

When I’m tempted to eat sugary foods or stress eat (very often the two are related), I will do one of the following instead:

• Drink a full glass of water.
• Move for 5 minutes.
• Replace a sugary food with a healthy food. Think a piece of fruit or some vegetables.
• Meditate for a few minutes.
• Read a book for a few minutes.
• Write down 3 things you’re grateful for RIGHT now.
• And so many others…

The key is to choose activities you’ll enjoy—that have a benefit to you—and that will take your mind off of the thing you’re trying not to do. Like eat sugary foods or stress eat.

And don’t think that having a plan in place will make this all simple. Not by a long shot! You’ll still have to make a conscious choice every single time to keep that commitment and do the thing.

You might have to make that choice day by day or sometimes even minute by minute.

You’ll have to constantly remind yourself of what your goal is and how important it is to keep that commitment to yourself.

Yes, you will slip up. No one is perfect. But when you do slip up, acknowledge that slip up, recommit to yourself, and move on.

And since we’re only working on 1 thing at a time, I’ll follow up with step #2 soon, but in striving to make step #1 a part of your life, you’re actually already working on step #2!

What will your first commitment be to yourself? Please leave it in a comment below and then report back and let me know how you’re doing. I’m happy to be your accountability partner!