Hey, this is Anne with your Coaching on the Go.

What is your go-to habit to soothe yourself? 

What do you do when you want to wrap a blanket around yourself and care for yourself? 

Is it something healthy or unhealthy? 

This week I’m talking about shifting a habit, changing a momentum. 

Last week we talked about momentum, but today and this week, we are talking about shifting an actual habit. 

Whatever it is that you do that is keeping you from your next level, and for me, years ago, it was I found myself procrastinating in certain ways. 

Often, these habits do allow you to put things off, procrastinate, and not face things. 

The tricky thing is that many of these habits you developed to protect something, to protect yourself in some way.

How we handle this, to allow it to shift, is compassionate and also involves us in creating patterns of success. 

The first one I want to talk about this week is keeping your word to yourself. 

In the book The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz, he discusses that this is the first agreement, to keep your word to yourself, integrity with your word.

If you decide to shift a habit, and daily you are breaking your word about wanting to shift the habit and then actually shifting the habit, that’s a big issue. 

There are many different layers to this, setting yourself up for success, but oftentimes, the easiest way to stop something is to completely stop it.

You get to keep your word to yourself. 

You are making a decision. 

Each time you break your word, your word loses its integrity with you, with your authentic self, and just like if you have a business relationship or a personal relationship where you keep promising something and repeatedly don’t deliver, there is trust broken.

I really like the analogy of thinking of yourself as your own best friend, because you are.

To maintain the best friend relationship, what do you get to do when you have a best friend? 

You have trust with your best friend. 

You keep your word.

You do what you say. 

You are compassionate, empathetic, caring, generous, loving.

You’re connected.

Today I’m talking about being connected with your word.

Instead of just saying you’re going to do something, stop yourself, think about what you’re committing to. 

Are you really committed to it? 

What are you willing to do? 

What are the prices you’re willing to pay for not doing it anymore?

What are the things that are going to come up that you are willing to stand strong in?

What are the rewards on the other side for keeping your word? 

Think about what it looks like to keep your word. 

Now, I noticed in the past several years, when I coached in a high level, transformational leadership container, that I was loose on my calendar.

I would commit to something, and it was really high level, so it really challenged us, and I could tell the difference between when I said I would do something and quickly agreed, or when I committed to it deep inside. 

When I committed to it, I thought about it, visualized it, imagined it, said I was going to do it, wrote it down, put a date when it was going to be completed, and how would I know if I was succeeding at it, if I was doing it, completing it.

There was quite a difference when I would fully commit or when I would just say, “I’ll do that,” because when I committed, there was a different process that took place.

It was like it connected down into my chest, into my heart, into even my stomach, into my root chakra, into my hips. 

It connected down into my being so that when I said it, I could feel that I was on board.

When people asked me to do things I didn’t want to do, I found myself saying yes, and I actually could tell I was not on board. 

A number of those things, I didn’t execute and even remember.

I didn’t understand why, then I started to notice the correlation between when I had deeply said yes, which also brings to mind that you shouldn’t be saying yes to things that you’re not on board with.

You either get to get more embedded in the decision, or just say no, so you can keep your word. 

Start with small things today, just one day at a time. 

Decide in the morning a number of things you are committed to, then at the end of the day, check and report it to yourself.

Be bold.

Decide what you are committed to today.

At the end of the day, write down what you succeeded in staying committed to, that you didn’t break. 

It shouldn’t be basic things.

It is something that is a challenge. 

For me, sugar continues to be a challenging relationship. 

It’s highly addicting, connected to deep love from when I was a child with my grandpa, who was a baker.

There’s family pride in it.

There’s also the fact that sugar is addicting. 

They say it’s the most addicting drug available and it definitely shifts you. 

When I go to make a commitment about sugar, if I’m not fully on board, I could breach that commitment within a short while, so I visualize the effect of not having it.

I visualize something beautiful that I see, like fitting in a swimming suit a certain way or being lighter for when I’m running, and then I look for other ways to feel the love that I would get from the baking and the eating of a piece of bakery that my grandpa might typically make in the past. 

I started thinking about it and ways I can set myself up for success.

When I say it, I want it to mean something, and it gets to. 

There was a family 4th of July party, and I wanted to be able to fit my swimsuit in a certain way and look a certain way. 

That was a great motivator for me, and supported me in 30 days of not eating sugar, which for me has been a challenge.

When the sugar addiction was leaving and gone, I noticed that I could think with my being instead of thinking with the sugar part of my brain. 

It was looking for sugar, for when I’d eat next, etc, etc. 

When I stopped eating the sugar and started eating a different way, I noticed my thoughts were from me.

Whatever habit you want to exterminate or shift, oftentimes there’s a part of your brain associated with it and you’re thinking about when you can have or do it. 

It’s making its play in your everyday decisions, which may sound strange to you right now, but by keeping your word and shifting a habit that’s been a soothing habit, you’re getting your control back so your intuition, your spirit voice can direct you, instead of the voice that’s trying to direct you towards this safety mechanism or soothing security mechanism.

All the things I’m doing with you are to drive you towards your own power and freedom. 

Keeping your word to yourself. 

You know what your rules are.

You know what your structures are.

To be helpful, set a couple of things you are committed to this week in the morning.

Lock into the commitment and keep it.

And at the end of the day, report out if you were able to succeed at it and how that feels, and if not, you get to reboot and start for the next morning. 

You get to do it every day this week. 

Sending you big love, looking to hear from you. 

Tell me what you’re working on. 

Tell me what you were able to accomplish or shift. 

Let’s keep it running for the whole week. 

Sending you big love.