I don’t advise that you promise to ‘never ever eat sugar again’ or ‘work out every single day’, or ‘never eat when I’m not hungry again’ or ‘stick to my diet until I’m at my goal weight’.
By the way, these are all real examples that I have heard this week from my clients.

Here’s why I discourage them, even though, if you stick to them, you will achieve your goal:
Promises like these don’t usually feel very good to us.
And we don’t usually do something if it doesn’t  feel good for very long.

When I asked my clients how they felt when they thought about these promises,
they said:
“tight”
“excited but nervous”
“defeated”
“angry”

The reasons for these feelings stemmed from these beliefs:
“I won’t stick to it”,
“I should have done this long ago”,
“It will be impossible for me”.

You can see that with underlying beliefs like these, its highly unlikely that they’re going to stick to their promises huh?

The problem with these grandiose promises is that they embody ‘black and white thinking’, or ‘perfection thinking’.
‘“So?” You may be thinking “we all want to be perfect”.
OK.
But here’s the problem with wanting to be perfect:
The minute you break your promise – the minute you do eat sugar, or skip a workout, or break your diet – you tell yourself you’re imperfect, you’ve blown it, and you give up completely.

Until the next grandiose promise – that lasts a day, a week, or a month.

I’m going to take a guess that you’ve tried this before, and failed.
So you don’t believe yourself next time you try it.

How about aiming smaller, and building up some evidence for yourself that you can and do keep promises to yourself?
Here’s how:
I suggested to each client that they add just one word to their promise:
Today.
Today I won’t eat sugar.
Today I’ll work out.
Today I’ll stick to my diet.

Aaah.

Immediate relief.
Certainty.
Calm.
Lightness.

Jane said “Yes that feels much better. One day at a time is manageable. I like the idea of renewing my commitment each day because after I keep the commitment for a couple days I usually move into something else or forget or don’t pay attention and then I’m back where I started. Making a conscious decision each day feels do-able and track-able.”

Try it.
Make one promise to yourself for today.
Then tomorrow, you get to choose whether you want to make it for today again.
And the next day.
And every day that you keep your promise to yourself,
You’re building trust that you are dependable and you do what you say you’ll do.
So that the next day, when you make that promise, you will feel certain and calm.
Which produces much more effective results than tight and nervous.