Do You Break The Promises You Make To Yourself?: Learn how the promises you make to yourself can provide you with an "anchor in the storm" and a greater accountability to fulfill your life's vision.
Mary Anne Radmacher, author of "Promises to Myself" shares the seven core promises she made to herself more than 20 years ago that have helped her honor her soul's deepest whispers and life purpose.
In her new book, Promises to Myself, author Mary Anne Radmacher discusses the promises we make to ourselves, our friends, promises of possibility and promises to the world. She writes: "Our promises become the anchor in a storm. The point toward which we travel while keeping our eyes fixed on the horizon line not the bumps in the road in front of us."
Commitment: Why did you decide to write a book on promises?
Mary Anne Radmacher: People often say something like this, “I have integrity with what I tell other people I will do, but I continually break promises to myself.”
Over the years, I’ve experienced that phenomenon myself. I created this book to call myself into a personal, practical accountability to what is truly important. It is a collection of phrases that I use as prompts to so that can best fulfill my service and vision to others when I am most accountable to my own vision and needs.
Filling a promise to myself, first, is counter to many models upon which I was raised. Selfless service. That it is better to give than receive.
I believe focus on making promises to our selves is important – that is the first and finest place where we learn to fulfill our promises to others. And, said more accurately, even in making and fulfilling a promise to someone else, we are first completing that action as a promise to ourselves.
Commitment: What are some of the promises you think we should make to ourselves on a daily basis?
Mary Anne: The books is divided in to four sections: promises to myself; promises of friendship, family and love; promises of possibility; promises to the world.
There are two images which can illustrate this: the circles the ring outward when a stone is dropped into water and the bands around a target’s bulls eye. These are my identified categories…perhaps others bands would be named differently. They do all telegraph outward from the core of “promises to myself.”
Commitment: What promises do you feel are important and necessary to making life sweeter and more joyful?
Mary Anne: Promises which focus on the legacy of our lives and not simply the immediacy of short term demands.
Observing the areas of life which bring that greatest joy and sweetness is an individualized pursuit. The commonalities that I observe are that they have to do with personal wellness/health, and dynamic and rewarding relationships.
We read a lot of pieces basically saying, “you don’t hear too many people whisper on their death bed, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” And, when folks are taking stock of their lives, it is more likely that their own well being and the relationships they have nurtured feature close to the top. The intangibles represent the highest lifetime values, not the tangibles of “things” that we widely (and wildly) pursue on a daily basis.
Commitment: What promises have you personally made to yourself and to the world around you?
Mary Anne: I actually published my list of promises in the contest of my life mission statement published in SIMPLY AN INSPIRED LIFE. Here are my seven core promises that have stood well for over twenty years:
Inspire and uplift myself and others;
Promote health, wellness through process and travel;
Become the finest version of myself;
Experience 17 editions in my lifetime;
Participate in anonymous service and public citizenship;
Provide appropriate resource for my treasured circle;
Enjoy cherished, trusted intimacy.
The specific promises I make on a daily basis come from these core promises.
Commitment: How does making a promise change things and increase the chances for possibility?
Mary Anne: I’m going to borrow some words of a participant from one my guided writing process, “PROMISES TO MYSELF,” to answer this question.
Marci, a financial consultant, followed a process of daily making and keeping promises to herself. She said, “This investment in creating and holding myself accountable to my personal promises has generated a rebirth of honoring my soul’s deepest whispers. I’ve uncovered more gratitude, more solitude, more laughter, more joy, more focus - finally grasping and treasuring the profound potential in setting one’s intention.”
Making a promise creates a greater attentiveness around the promise. When our awareness is heightened so is the chance for fresh view and new perspective.
Commitment: In your workshops on living a full, creative and balanced life, what are five things you share with your students?
Mary Anne: Find a way of writing that works for you and use that way to observe your life; be aware of how you instruct yourself in your day and “create your own curriculum,”
asking questions is a more significant tool than providing answers that already exist; create a model of accountability that is practical for your daily life; you already know everything you need to know…now discover the way to access your best knowledge.
Commitment: How can reflecting on our promises give us clarity during stressful times or times of transition?
Mary Anne: Our promises become the anchor in a storm. The point toward which we travel while keeping our eyes fixed on the horizon line not the bumps in the road in front of us.
Staying connected to my core promises lifts me from the press of immediate weight and lets me soar above it, envisioning the greater, ultimate outcome that I hold close to my heart.
Commitment: What impact does making a promise have on a relationship?
Mary Anne: The first (and most significant) relationship it impacts is the relationship with self. If I am making and keeping my promises to myself, I am teaching myself, in the best model possible, how to make appropriate promises to others.
Deepening my awareness of promises has clarified and strengthened all of my relationships. Increasingly I am less likely to make a promise to another than I am in doubt of being able to maintain or keep.
Awareness of promises has connected me to a greater level of personal accountability. I am less likely to pose blame upon another and more likely to look within my own circle of purpose and action to find meaning for both joys and difficulties.
Commitment: What are ten promises you think every person should make?
Mary Anne: I will answer that by saying that I believe that every person will benefit from making a set of promises. Seven. Ten. Twelve. A number that is logical and manageable to that individual. As to saying WHAT those promises should be, I will not say.
I recently relocated my working studio and came across a writing from five years ago. It read,
“I’ve written and framed my promises to myself and leaned them against the mirror in the living room. They are my measures. Each day they remind me to aggressively take measure: does this action, activity, course of thought, mesh with what I say is important? Are at least 80% of my activities productive for and in alignment with my personal promises?
Be aware. Be attentive. Be amazed.
AND be on your own road not detoured into the counties of the concerns of others.
It is said truly by Marcus Aurelius and so many other wise observers, that “You go where your thoughts go.” Support your promises with appropriate words…
“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7
From Scovall Shinn, “Your word is your wand.”
“The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something which will outlast it.” Jim Eliot (Under the Shadow of the Almighty)
T. Roosevelt’s words, “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”
Or my own words, “The greatest gift in a day is a dangerous unselfishness wrapped in joy and tied with ribbons of laughter and learning.”
That an individual connects with their core promises to themselves will bring an unprecedented level of clarity to all aspects of their daily experience.
To Purchase Promises to Myself click here.
About the Author: Mary Anne Radmacher conducts workshops on living a full, creative, balanced life, teaches internet writing seminars, and works with individual clients.
She has been writing since she was a child and creating gifts and décor for the home for more than 25 years.
She is the author of Lean Forward into Your Life, Live Boldly, Courage Doesn’t Always Roar, May Your Walls Know Joy, and Simply an Inspired Life (with Jonathan Lockwood Huie).
She lives with her husband near Seattle, Washington. Visit her online at www.maryanneradmacher.com or www.maryanneradmacher.net.
