Committed to Yourself

Mikiko Noji

Leo Babuata writes about how we let ourselves down; we commit to doing something - like meditation practice - then don't follow through.  

While it is easy to show up to appointments we make with other people … I’ve noticed that most people struggle with commitments they make with themselves.

If you say you’re going to exercise, meditate, write, journal, work on a project … but then you don’t stick to that commitment … it can feel like you’re letting yourself down.

We start to form the mental habit of letting ourselves off the hook, so that we don’t trust ourselves to stick to our own commitments, if other people aren’t involved. This creates a belief that we aren’t as important to ourselves as other people are.

These suggestions make sense:

1. Make a date with yourself. 
2. Treat it as sacred. As I said, don’t treat it lightly — we often treat our commitments to ourselves as something that don’t matter, that can be pushed back without consequence. But what if this were a sacred appointment? Something elevated beyond the ordinary, that we treat as really important to us? Something that is a way to honor ourselves and our best intentions? Something that we’ll even enjoy!
3. Bring a sense of curiosity, play, appreciation.