I had a bad habit.
For twenty-five years.
That’s a long time.
But I’ve now overcome it. I’ve been free of it for over a year and haven’t looked back.
How did I break free?
In short,
I made a promise.
And not just to anyone, but to my flesh and blood, my youngest son, Ezrah.
The habit was painful. It drove my wife crazy. She was always on my case about it.
But that wasn’t enough to make me do anything about it.
What did it was when I saw my son doing the. Exact. Same. Thing.
My bad habit was becoming his bad habit.
And it was all because of my poor example.
He was simply mirroring me as all children do.
So on the spot we struck a deal and made each other a promise.
I promised that I wouldn’t do it anymore if he promised me the same.
We shook on it to make it official.
I could feel the difference inside me and at that moment knew that I was done.
I had promised to never chew my nails again.
I have followed through on that promise.
I have since learned to use this incredible invention called “nail clippers”.
I no longer have chewed up nails all over the floor of my office at the gym.
I’m clean.
But here’s the “secret” I learned through this process and what I wanted to share with you.
For all those years, I wasn’t changing my behaviour because it didn’t feel important enough to do so.
I knew I “should” or “could” change but massive action is never fueled by “should-ing” or “could-ing”.
Rather you have to put yourself in a position where you no longer have a choice.
By making a promise I made breaking the habit about so much more than just my personal hygiene. I made it about my character.
Am I a man of my word or am I not?
Can my children trust me to do what I say or not?
This made it mean far more to me.
My values and whether I live them were now called into question.
When I raised the bar so that my character was now on the line, it actually wasn’t that difficult to change.
We make change most difficult on ourselves due to not being fully committed.
We’re wishy washy.
Half in, half out.
In turn, we torture ourselves.
That promise made me all in. I had no choice.
I couldn’t “secretly” chew my nails when alone because I would still know and it would be obvious when my son saw my hands that I wasn’t living up to my end of the bargain.
What we do in private generally shows up in public.
(ie. Frequently eating fast food alone in our car will show up in public on our body in the form of weight gain.)
I don’t know what you struggle with. What habits you want to break or what you want to achieve.
I do know that a lot of people don’t achieve what they think they want because they don’t want it as bad as they think they do.
Losing that fifty pounds. Getting that first chin up. Starting that business.
Talk is cheap. Action is the answer.
For me to take action I needed to make a promise. That was the key.
Talk followed by necessary action.
If you feel stuck or plateaued on what you say you want, the missing key could be meaning.
You need to make it mean more.
You need to put yourself in a position where you no longer have the choice to coast and put forward a mediocre, half hearted effort.
You need to be all in.
Are you?
Promise for progress,
Matt
ps. If you’re going to use my discovery of making a promise to someone you’re close to, please realize that it is a double edged sword.
Don’t promise the moon unless you’re an astronaut.
ie. If you’re going to promise something it needs to be a stretch and a challenge but it better also be something that you’re capable of achieving. Otherwise the whole thing will backfire. Instead of building trust you will lose it. You will show the people closest to you that your word means nothing because you don’t follow through.
Choose your promises wisely and don’t take them lightly.
