2 months left in the year. Insert every cliché you can think of – time flies, can’t believe the year’s almost over, blink and it’s over. Some may look at 2 months to go and start thinking about what to focus on in 2025. My challenge to you is to look back at those promises you made to yourself in the beginning of 2024 and explore maximizing the last 2 months to keep these promises.
It’s interesting how we can get so frustrated when someone else lets us down and breaks a promise of what they were supposed to do. A coworker may have promised to deliver their part of the project but when the due date arrives, they’re nowhere near ready. You may have set up a volunteer event in the community and your friend doesn’t show. We look externally and wonder why they can’t be relied upon.
Yet when we fail to keep a promise to ourselves, what happens next? It varies for us all, but I guarantee excuses at some point creep in. We always can find a story to articulate why we didn’t carry through on a promise we made to ourselves. It’s easy – just look at some external circumstance and craft a story that this is the reason we failed to keep our promise. I stopped my workout plan because work got too busy. I was going to take a stretch project at work, but I didn’t feel like I was supported by my boss. We may fall into a trap where we make excuses for our own failed promises yet are hard on the individuals that don’t hold up their end of the bargain.
While it may not be easy, we need to spend time reflecting on why we’re breaking promises to ourselves and explore what it will take to get back on the right path. If we’re struggling with a workout plan we promised ourself back in January, our solution doesn’t have to be waiting until some grand reveal on January 1st 2025. Keeping promises to ourselves can be kick started right now to finish the year strong. Relationship goals, work goals, community volunteer goals – whatever the goal and however far we’ve fallen away from our promise, 2 months can be a lot of time to get back on track keeping ourselves accountable.
I’ve found there’s no better way to gain confidence and trust in ourselves than carrying out the promises we’ve made to ourselves. Yes, there will certainly be hurdles and yes there will certainly be promises broken. But when we keep pushing to be accountable for what we promised ourselves, we gain so much self-love through confidence and trust we build internally.
Take your step: identify one promise you made to yourself at the beginning of 2024 and are currently struggling with. At this point if we’ve struggled early with a goal, chances are we’ve given up on it. The challenge for you is to explore how this goal could become possible with 2 months to go. The outcome may not look exactly like you envisioned in January but find a way to generate some momentum to keep the promise of working towards a specific goal. Refuse to punt until January 2025 and take advantage of 2 months of momentum that can be created.