How to Keep Your Word:

These skydiving photos are from my 18th birthday. Since around age 10, I stated that I would go skydiving. My parents were understandably opposed. So I said I’d do it the day I turned 18. And I did. Even as a child, I could keep my word over the course of nearly a decade. It gave me very little patience for people, since most can’t keep a promise for a day. They don't adhere to what they say they will do. Adherence is the number one predictor of weight loss success; but people spend almost no time on evaluating how and why they refuse to adhere to planned nutritional programming. If you don't learn how to keep your word, why even bother continuing to say a word?

As a professional coach, I have had to dig a lot deeper into understanding other people and what integrity really means. The pressures of life and who we think others need us to be end up dictating many outcomes. Our word falters. And our identity shifts toward “I am the person WHO doesn’t do what I say I will.” It becomes increasingly difficult to rely on yourself because your word increasingly means nothing.

Thus, learning to keep your word is where one must begin. It won’t happen by signing up for a 12 week course, an online workout program, a really fun series of exercise classes, a diet tracker, or fitness tracking tech. If you haven’t rebuilt the identity of “I am the person WHO does what she says she will do,” then how dare you even think you’ll be the person who does what others advise to do? You can’t keep your word. You sure as hell can’t keep others’ words. Learn to keep your word. Stop bouncing around pretending like a different program is going to magically imbue you with honesty.

Without this awareness, please don’t bother setting health and fitness goals. However, WITH this awareness, please begin by plotting PROCESSES which you knowingly and reliably WILL do. With each small win, you may command a greater ask. And with each greater ask, you will have earned a greater trust in your own word. With the identity in hand of “I am the person who does what she says she will do,” you and all others can count on you perhaps for the first time in your life. With that identity, your goals can be grand. But most importantly, they can BE. Nay. They WILL be.