Why You Keep Breaking Promises to Yourself

Ever wonder why you can easily show up for everyone else but repeatedly break the promises you make to yourself? In this MavenHeart episode, Nicole Ternay dives deep into the psychology of self-abandonment, why strict discipline and accountability buddies fail long-term, and how every small decision you make is actually a vote for your identity. It’s time to stop waiting for life to calm down and start building a relationship where you own your word.

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Why You Keep Breaking Promises to Yourself

I have a juicy topic lined up for you today because we are talking about why you keep breaking promises to yourself. For me, understanding this concept was absolutely illuminating. If you are the person who is always saying, "Oh yeah, I'm going to lose weight," "I'm going to start my new business when this happens," or "I want to make an extra $1,000 this month," but you never actually follow through, this is the episode for you. It becomes an ongoing goal every single year, yet you aren't honoring your word.

Welcome back to the MavenHeart Podcast! I’m your host, Nicole Ternay, and I am so excited that you are here. This is our second solo episode, and if you haven't already, you must go listen to our last interview. The woman I spoke with went through so much warfare...enough for ten people...but she shared incredible gems of wisdom on how she used those exact challenges to catapult her into her next chapter. I also highly recommend going back to the first solo episode about being stuck. It will help you move forward in whatever it is you say you want, whether that is a leaner body, a better relationship with yourself, your spouse, or your kids, or figuring out your next chapter.

If you are ready to take that next step and step out of the grind, I can help guide you through it inside the MavenHeart membership or through my private coaching. You can head over to nicoleternay.com to take the MavenHeart Archetype Quiz. It takes less than 60 seconds to find out exactly which archetype you are currently operating in and what to do next.

Before we dive in, I want to share a bit of data. I’ve actually been in the podcast world for quite some time. Right before COVID, I started a podcast called Weight Loss for Women Over 40. Without any active advertising, it gets 25,000 listeners per episode, which completely blows my mind. My aim is to make MavenHeart even bigger, and you can help me do that. If you share, like, comment, and leave a written review on Apple or Spotify, it helps this message reach more women. For me, it's not about hitting fascinating data points; it's about helping you come back to your core, your inner knowing, and becoming an expert on who you truly are. I woke up one day and realized I was living a life based entirely on old conditioning and patterns that I had dragged along with me my whole life. Now, I am on my true path as a coach and speaker, impacting millions of women around the world.

The Evidence Left Behind

How many promises have you made to yourself this year, this month, or even in the last five minutes? You don't necessarily make them to other people...you make them inside your own head. I want to say right now that there is absolutely no judgment here, because I do the same thing and my clients do too. This is a continuous work in progress.

Honestly, if we hit every single goal we ever set, we would never learn anything. When you don't hit a goal, you learn something powerful about yourself. Every time you set a goal, make a promise, and miss it, there is a lesson and a new identity shift waiting for you. A lot of times, the promises sound like: "I'm going to stop settling," "I'm going to start taking care of myself," "I'm going to work out six days a week," "I'm going to leave this horrible relationship," or "I'm finally going to put myself first."

But how many of those do you keep? For me, a personal one is telling myself I'll clean the tub today. Nine times out of ten, it doesn't happen that day. I even have a task on my personal list that has been there for over a year: changing my last name back to my maiden name on my TSA account after my divorce.

Here is what you need to understand: every time you break a promise to yourself, it doesn't just disappear. It leaves evidence. It leaves evidence in your brain that says you cannot be trusted. That is where the real damage comes in. It’s not just about the missed follow-through; it’s that every broken promise quietly chips away at your self-respect and changes the way you see yourself, one tiny decision at a time. We think confidence comes first, but it doesn't...trust does. You cannot have confidence in someone you do not trust. If you don't trust yourself, how do you expect confidence to even show up?

The Truth About Self-Abandonment

We spend so much time downloading new morning routines, trying to find more discipline, or telling ourselves to "suck it up, buttercup" and force it into our schedules. But the better question to ask is: Why do I keep abandoning myself?

You aren't lazy, and you actually have a lot more discipline than you think. The issue is that you are practicing self-abandonment without realizing it, and it usually stems from a limiting belief. If you want to make an extra $1,000 this month, but you subconsciously believe you have to work a grueling 80-hour week to get it, and you don't have those 80 hours, the money won't show up. The doing part is important, but you have to set your mindset up first.

Having spent over 24 years in the weight loss industry, I’ve learned through personal training and coaching that it always comes back to psychology. You don’t actually care about the number on the scale. What you care about is the identity of the person you want to be at that leaner weight. That is the mindset you need to create, and it requires a foundation of self-trust where you stop putting your own needs on the back burner.

Breaking promises to ourselves has become incredibly normalized in society. Think about how many women say they are still trying to lose the baby weight from a child who is now 24 years old. We've gotten highly skilled at convincing ourselves that our own goals can wait while we rush to put out unnecessary fires for everyone else.

Consider this example: If you asked me to pick you up at the airport and I said, "Yeah, yeah, I'll be there," but then I never showed up, ignored your texts, and messaged you 24 hours later saying I got distracted, you would never trust me with that task again. But if I texted you the morning you landed, tracked your flight, and stood waiting at the gate with a bottle of water and snacks, you would call me every single time.

Your brain works the exact same way. When you constantly feed it lip service about losing weight or starting a project and then quietly negotiate out of it with excuses about your schedule, your brain stops taking you seriously.

Shifting From Rules to Identity

What fascinates me is that you absolutely have the capacity to keep commitments. If someone asks you to bake cupcakes for the book club, you show up with the cupcakes. You are phenomenal at keeping promises to others; you’ve just accidentally decided that your word to yourself carries way less weight. We keep our promises optional when we are the only ones paying the price in our heads.

This is why accountability buddies and strict diets don't work long-term. When you are deeply committed to yourself, you don't need to meet Aunt Susie at the gym to make sure you show up...your own word is enough.

Your identity is not built on giant, dramatic moments or public proclamations on Instagram. True identity is built on an ordinary Tuesday when nobody is clapping, nobody is keeping score, and no one notices what you are doing except you. Choosing to go for a walk, drinking your water, or putting down the phone can seem entirely insignificant until those small choices compound into who you are. Every promise is a vote for the woman you want to become.

Human beings are naturally programmed to evolve. A deer running in the woods doesn't look at a fence and think, "I'm going to jump two feet higher today." But we do. We have the unique capacity for achievement, and when we stop learning and evolving, we begin to decay physically and mentally. Every promise you repeat in your head asks: What kind of woman am I being?

Overcoming the Internal Friction

Most women think they struggle with consistency, but the truth is you are struggling with identity congruence. There is an exhausting gap between who you say you are and who your daily decisions introduce to the world. Ping-ponging between the old version of you and the version you are capable of being creates an internal friction that completely steals your physical and mental energy.

We also break promises because we make them emotionally but expect our future selves to carry them out logically. On Sunday night you feel inspired, clean out the pantry, and declare a total fresh start. But Monday morning rolls around, you didn't sleep well, and life gets messy. When stress walks through the front door, the promise suddenly costs more than it did when you made it.

That is when your primitive brain takes over. Its only job is to keep you alive, seek instant gratification, and avoid discomfort. It starts negotiating, telling you that you deserve a break, that this week is too crazy, or that you can just start next month when things calm down. But let me tell you the truth: life is never going to calm down.

You deserve a life where your own word actually means something. We’ve become addicted to the dopamine hit of emotional fresh starts, but if you are constantly wiping the slate clean without progressing, you are just repeating the cycle.

Building a New Jar of Evidence

Society tells us that transformation has to be grueling and hard, but when you love what you do, it doesn't feel like a battle. I love coaching my clients, speaking on stages, and showing up for the MavenHeart membership. It lights me up, so it isn't a chore. Inside the membership, I still teach weight loss, but I teach women how to navigate it while on vacation or in the middle of a chaotic schedule. You don’t have to wait for the perfect conditions.

Identity is built while you are unloading the dishwasher, handling a demanding workload, or healing from a divorce. It's built by deciding to keep going no matter what.

Over the course of your life, you have collected evidence based on old conditioning...evidence that you aren't good enough, that you're doing too much, or that you take up too much space. But you have the power to collect evidence in the opposite direction. Every tiny promise you keep is a receipt. It's like putting pennies into a jar; over time, it accumulates into absolute self-trust.

Your primitive brain will try to remind you of the last ten times things didn't go as planned. When that happens, you have to tap into your sophisticated prefrontal cortex...your internal cheerleader...that reminds you that you can do anything you put your mind to. You get to decide which jar you want to fill.

Transformation doesn't happen overnight, but it shifts completely when you stop negotiating with yourself. Imagine what your life would look like six months from now if your word became law. Not in a harsh, punishing way, but in a solid, grounded way. A woman who wakes up knowing she has her own back walks, talks, and chooses things differently because life is far less scary when you trust yourself completely.

Stop making promises designed to impress your future, and start making promises that rebuild the relationship with yourself. The goal was never to become a more disciplined woman; the goal is to become a woman whose own word carries weight.