How many times have you made a promise to yourself; perhaps to exercise, to eat well, or to start a new project, only to find that (for one reason or another) you had to break your commitment?

How many times have you made a promise to yourself; perhaps to exercise, to eat well, or to start a new project, only to find that (for one reason or another) you had to break your commitment? In these moments you likely rationalized your change of plans; someone needed your support, or something more urgent came up, and you went about supporting everyone (and everything) else in your life – except you.

I have a truth for you. Every time you fail to follow through on a promise you’ve made to yourself you chip away at your self confidence.

Picture a piggy bank. Imagine that every time you make a promise to yourself – no matter how small – and follow through on that promise you get to put a quarter into your bank. Good news, right? Well, there’s bad news too.

Every time you fail to follow through on a promise you’ve made to yourself you have to take one dollar out of your bank. You can see then that a pattern of failing to keep your self commitments can put you in “confidence debt” pretty quickly!

Luckily, you can dig yourself out of confidence debt pretty quickly. You simply need to decide that you are going to develop a pattern of keeping the promises you make to yourself.

Today, pledge to make only those commitments you know you can (and will) keep. Then – keep your commitments! Show up when you’ve decided you’re going to; no matter what else comes up. Follow through on that project; no matter how frightened or uneasy you might feel.

In order to possess a high level of self confidence you must believe that you can count on yourself to keep your commitments. The only way to develop this belief is to act your way into it. Take one step at a time, keep one commitment at a time, and fill that piggy bank!