Pinky Promise
"Mom, do you pinky promise that if I clean my room, I can have ice cream after dinner? "My daughter's eyes zero in on me as if we're in an intense staring contest as she raises two fingers to her eyes and back to mine with a deep ferocity. If I fail to come through with my end of this agreement, my pinky finger will be toast!
Trust is an essential part of every facet of our lives. Be true to the promises you make to others, but more importantly, the ones you make to yourself. I could babble on about how trust is a currency in business, but no shit Sherlock. We all know this!
We have the hardest time keeping promises to ourselves. Our dreams, our missions, and our impacts. Because it's much easier to focus on achieving other people's dreams or visions than our own, isn't it?
We all want a roadmap for impact and "success." We want the teacher of life to hand us a syllabus and tell us exactly how we can have maximum impact. And the truth is this doesn't exist because your map is like the Marauders Map in Harry Potter. Anyone else that looks at it will see a blank parchment & it's up to you to say the magic words and see what's on that blank slate.
In the book, in goes something like this:
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" is the password phrase that "opens" the Marauder's Map. The map was created by Remus Lupin, James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew (under aliases, of course), to help Remus find his way undetected out of Hogwarts during his terrifying monthly transformations into a werewolf. Somewhat of a motto for mischievous troublemakers like Fred and George, the map's password hints at the unsung benefits of breaking the rules. The counterpart, to "close" the map, is "mischief managed."
Our own words might look something like this:
I AM worthy of greatness. My story can heal others. It might be scary, but I am capable. The blank parchment will be filled with messy lines and other people moving about, but I need to start moving too and stop focusing on the other people on their journey. The moving dots on the map are necessary to get you further, but first, you must step onto your OWN playing field.
A few helpful considerations:
You're not going to be perfect. But a continuing series of broken promises causes you to see yourself the same way you'd see someone who continued to break the promises they made to you. (1) This halts momentum BIG TIME because the more stuck you are, the harder it is to get unstuck. This stuckness then compounds negatively. This means it's time to start course correcting with action to begin rebuilding that trust in yourself. Start small but take daily actions towards the goals. The baby steps will equate to many miles covered in time. You will start to regain some confidence and trust that you're indeed capable. You must start believing in yourself again, my friends!
So, will you start to trust yourself, or will you continually break the commitments made?
If you made a pinky promise to yourself and had to stay true to every one, you'd probably be walking around with a permanent splint and a nonfunctional appendage by now. But this doesn't mean you can't heal!
So as you unravel and continue to become, start by staying faithful to the promises and agreements you've made with yourself to do and be better.
I'll leave you with this beautiful quote:
"I feel keeping a promise to yourself is a direct reflection of the love you have for yourself. I used to make promises to myself and find them easy to break. Today, I love myself enough to not only make a promise to myself, but I love myself enough to keep that promise."
Steve Maraboli
Resources:
https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-stop-breaking-the-promises-you-make-to-yourself-5406808aec13
