How to Keep Promises to Yourself (The Missing Piece in Building Habits and Reaching Goals)

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to keep promises to other people, and how easy it can be to break promises to yourself?

You say you’ll start exercising Monday. You’ll work on the dream project on “Monday.” You’ll finally improve your sleep, study your scriptures, work on a goal, or begin building healthier habits…on “Monday.”

But somehow, week after week, month after month, and even year after year, “Monday” never comes.

Or…

You actually get started on a goal, but then you lose your momentum, it’s extremely difficult to get it back again, and your progress stops.

If you’ve ever struggled to stay motivated, build habits, or make progress toward goals that matter to you, you’re not alone. And the problem may not be discipline or willpower at all.

The Missing Piece in Building Habits and Reaching Goals

The missing piece—the thing that’s keeping you from staying motivated, building habits, and making progress towards your goals—is something different than you might think: Personal integrity. It’s all about keeping your promises to the most important person in the world: YOU.

It’s easy to rationalize not keeping promises to ourselves, often so we can keep our promises to others. We put them ahead of us.

But…

Not keeping those promises to ourselves—that personal integrity—is where we often miss the boat on creating habits and achieving goals. And when we don’t keep those promises we make to ourselves, our personal integrity erodes because we’re not keeping our word to ourselves.

That just doesn’t feel good, and it certainly doesn’t lead to consistency in the things we want to achieve.

Here’s my favorite definition of integrity:

Integrity means doing what you say you’re going to do when you say you’re going to do it no matter what.

So, how do we build personal integrity?

How do we keep those promises we make to ourselves, no matter what “real” life throws at us?

The Secret to Keeping Promises to Yourself

The “secret” key to keeping every single promise you make to yourself is so simple that you might think, “There’s no way this will work!” Stay with me, my friends, because I’ve put this secret to the test over and over again, and I’ve seen it work over and over again in my own life. Here’s the secret:

The promises you make to yourself must be so stinking small that you can keep them every single time, no matter what, even when “real” life happens (because it will!).

These super small promises, kept consistently, become habits, and these habits will get you to your goal. That’s a promise.

→ I’m working on a blog post all about habits, so watch for that in the coming weeks.

What are some stinking small daily promises you can make to yourself?

I will drink one glass of water.
I will eat one more serving of fruits or vegetables.
I will move for 5 minutes.
I will read one verse of scripture.
I will breathe deeply for a few minutes.
I will read a few pages of a book.
I will send one gratitude text.
I will make my bed. This simple promise has been proven to help you create consistent habits!
And so on…

Why Keeping Just One Promise to Yourself Changes Everything

Here’s a bonus secret: Only make one new promise to yourself at a time. Why? Studies have discovered the following:

Make one promise to yourself = 85% chance of long-term success
Make two promises to yourself = 35% chance of long-term success
Make three+ promises to yourself = 5% chance of long-term success

Trying to keep too many promises becomes problematic because your focus is split between trying to accomplish too many new things on top of your already often-full plate. While it can be hard to focus on just one new promise, thinking that keeping just that small promise won’t add up to much progress, keeping one promise consistently—creating that momentum—can spill over into other areas of your life, like how a pebble thrown into water creates ripple after ripple after ripple.

Here’s another key to building personal integrity through keeping those promises: If you must make more than one promise, make sure those promises are in different areas of your life so they don’t compete against each other: Intellectual + fitness, relationships + spirituality, fitness + nutrition, and so on.

What About When You Break a Promise to Yourself?

You will break promises to yourself. No one is perfect, and when we’re trying to keep promises, create habits, and achieve goals, it’s natural to mess up from time to time. After all, we’re trying something new! So, when this happens…

Give yourself a pat on the back for all you’ve accomplished. After all, you’ve done more than you’ve done in the past, and that’s something to celebrate!
Evaluate why you broke your promise: Was it unrealistic? Was this just a fluke? What’s going on in your life that might affect your ability to keep your promise? Is this promise still important to you?
Adjust your promise if needed. Promises are not set in stone!
Learn from what happened.
Begin again…immediately.

The 5-Minute Miracle: The Solution to Lagging Motivation + Maintaining Momentum

Back in mid-October, John and I had dinner with a friend from Georgia who had surprisingly shown up at a conference I was attending. He told us about a dream project he’d been working on in little bits at a time for over 30 years, but for most of those three decades, he hadn’t made as much progress as he’d like to. Since he had received an award for this project at the conference, I was curious what had changed—going from very little progress to almost finishing this huge and daunting project—because I was thinking about my own stalled progress on my dream project.

He shared how, during a prayer a few years ago, he felt he was told that if he simply touched this project every day, he’d receive the guidance, desire, and time to finish it. Some nights, when he was ready to go to sleep, he’d remember he hadn’t touched it, so he’d grab his laptop and simply “touch” it by changing a word or a punctuation mark—a “touch” that took only a few seconds.

Hmmm…I thought…That’s the answer I’ve been praying for on how to move forward on my dream project. So I made a promise to myself:

I will spend 5 minutes, every weekday, working on my dream project.

Why just 5 minutes?

I can do anything for 5 minutes, and more often than not, that 5 minutes turns into 10, 20, 40, or even an hour or so. But if I truly only have time for 5 minutes, that’s totally okay. I’ve kept my promise to myself for that day, and promises kept consistently add up to massive results over time. “Just” 5 minutes gets me started, which is arguably the hardest part of building a consistent habit.

And why only work on this project on weekdays?

It gives me a break if I want it. Sometimes, promising to do something every single day can be exhausting and even cause feelings of resentment, even with something you’re passionate about. And while the promise is only for weekdays, I can totally choose to work on the weekends if I want to.

So, how has my 5-minute promise worked? It’s actually been kind of miraculous!

As of today, I’ve kept my 5-minute promise every time since that dinner in mid-October (I started a new streak after taking a week off after shoulder surgery in late December), and I know, with 100000% certainty, that without my 5-minute promise, any type of a streak would be non-existent. And on those days when I don’t want to do my 5 minutes (because that happens!), I do it anyway because I don’t want to break my streak. That’s some pretty serious motivation too! And while I know that at some point, I’ll break my streak, that’s totally okay. I’ll get started again and build another streak.

So…what’s my dream project? I feel like this needs a drum roll because there has definitely been some fear, imposter syndrome, and other feelings associated with embarking on this dream project. I am…

Writing a book—a book that has been on my heart for several years.

I actually started collecting notes and ideas for this book over 3 years ago, but the actual writing wasn’t taking place until I started keeping my 5-minute promise to myself back in October. I’m up to four “version 1” (I don’t like the term “rough draft”) chapters, and it’s beyond exciting and rewarding to be making progress on something that is so important to me.

Building your personal integrity one stinking small promise at a time AND making incredible progress on what’s important to you is absolutely priceless. And kind of miraculous too!

Ready to build your personal integrity—one tiny promise at a time? Start today.

What will your first stinking small promise be? Drop it in a comment below. I’d love to cheer you on!

If you’ve been struggling to stay consistent, build habits, or follow through on goals that matter to you…this is for you. Click below to download my FREE “5-Minute Miracle Habit Creation Guide” and start your own simple daily practice of keeping promises to yourself—just five minutes at a time.

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