What difference are you seeing in your day since we started the challenge from Episode 164?

If you haven’t listened to Episode 164, A Challenge Worth Taking, make the time to do that.

We’ve been working on saving the first hour of our day for things that are our priorities, not what others try to tell us through social media, emails and anything else that come to you through your phone or computer first thing in the morning.

When you are doing this, giving your attention to what YOU prioritize instead of what others think is important, you are keeping a promise that you made to yourself.

What good does that do?

What I learned along the way was that as I started deciding exactly what I was going to do and then actually doing it, my self-esteem started to improve.  That wasn’t even my intention when I started this challenge at all.

In the past, I always had a tough time loving myself, so when I started noticing that how I felt about myself was changing, I got really interested in what was going on.

Maybe self-esteem has never been one of your strengths and you’ve never felt confident in yourself…

Me either, but that has really changed!

Did you know that the first step to learning to love yourself is making a commitment to yourself like you would to a friend and actually keeping it?

And you can start doing that TODAY!

If you’ve told yourself that you won’t look at your phone, computer or any electronic device for the first hour of the day, and do it, it will show yourself that you are important enough to you to do what you say you will.

This is one way to begin showing yourself that you are important and that you matter.  That happens between you and you.  It doesn’t matter what anyone else chooses to do when you know that you are there for yourself.  The greatest part of this idea is that it has more to do with yourself than with anyone else.  I don’t have to wait for someone else to show up and tell me I’m doing great.  I get to do that for myself and that is an amazing way to show love!

It’s not about what I get done every day.

It’s about who I’m becoming every day.

Am I becoming someone who loves herself enough to do what she said she was going to do?

It’s still amazing to me that making a commitment to myself and keeping it had that big of an impact on how I felt about myself.  But the truth is…it did.  And it continues to do that for me.

Remember, this isn’t about doing… It’s about becoming!

As I got started in this process, things started to show up and stand out for me about why it was happening.

It was during this time I first discovered this that I read the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey.  I know I talk about this book a lot, but it really was the catalyst to change that I needed. 

I wanted to share a few quotes from that book with you today that I really think apply.

“As we make and keep commitments, even small commitments, we begin to establish an inner integrity that gives us the awareness of self-control and the courage and strength to accept more of the responsibility for our own lives.”

That helped me to start to understand what was happening to me.

Then a little further on in the book, I found this one,

“Making and keeping promises to yourself builds confidence. Then, we can be confident in the promises we make and keep with others. You actually keep yourself from growing when you don’t keep commitments to yourself.”

I used to keep every commitment I made to everyone else.  There was never a question that I would do what I said I was going to do.  But that never helped my self-esteem.  I’m not sorry that I helped others in that way, I just had it backward.  I thought the more I’d do for others, the better I’d feel about myself.   It was only when I started keeping commitments to myself that I started to see improvement in how I felt about myself.

Dr. Covey said that this builds confidence in the promises you make with others as well.

More confidence and self-esteem?  Yes.  Please!

I hope that’s what you will find as well, from whatever point you’re starting from.

Self-Confidence is an INTERNAL game.  ⁠

You do not need EXTERNAL recognition.

Make the commitment to start your day off with what YOU prioritize in your life, and then keep that promise, and watch as your confidence in yourSELF grows and all the benefits of focus and dopamine regulation as we’ve talked about in episodes 164, 165 and 166.

All of this comes together to create more of the person you choose to become.