It can be hard to keep up with ourselves and form a healthy relationship. The thing is, though, is that when we make relationship promises with ourselves, it can help us keep a clear head when it comes to everything else going on in our lives! Instead of letting the rest of your life take control, make a few basic promises to yourself to help keep you going strong.
“Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort. ” – Deborah Day
Steve Maraboli once said, “The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself.” When focusing on our relationships with other people, we often forget the importance of focusing on our relationships with ourselves. Life can be stressful, between work, outside relationships, family troubles, and pressure to perform.
Here Are 10 Promises You Must Make For Yourself
1. Eat well, but treat yourself
Our bodies need all the right stuff to keep us going through all the stress in our day to day lives. However, that doesn’t mean that your body doesn’t need something that tastes good, too! Keeping your food healthy for your body is great, but letting yourself cheat every once in a while, is important, too.
Why?
“If you’re never eating the foods you really enjoy or which give you pleasure, then that’s going to result in feelings of deprivation. If you have these feelings of deprivation, it can increase the chance of bingeing or overeating, and this can end up being quite an unhealthy cycle,” says accredited practicing dietitian Chloe McLeod.
Lesson? Give yourself what you want, because you more than deserve it. And it’ll keep you healthy too.
2. Don’t fret over the things you can’t change
Sometimes, you just can’t decide the outcome of what’s going to happen. No matter how hard you work, you may find that some things just end up the same. In that case, it’s time to just let it go. You did your best, but you can’t change everything. Don’t stress out too much over things that are immutable.
3. Take time for yourself
If you’re the type who loves to hang around other people, then you’ll want to remember that it’s important to take time for yourself, too. Give yourself time to recuperate from the social obligations and expectations. Take a long, hot bath or spend time reading your favorite book. You’re going to be the person looking out for you the most.
Or as Dr. Aymee Coget points out, “By not taking a little time out of each day for yourself, you might be less happy than possible. Start by focusing on yourself. Acknowledge that your own happiness is important and practice happiness-boosting routines.”
4. Find time for your passion
You have to do something you love, and do it a lot! You may find yourself swamped with work or social expectations, which can be stressful. A great way to combat this and feel more like yourself is to find something you’re passionate about. Whether it’s yoga, dance, writing, or drawing, you’ll want to find time to do something you love.
5. Read a book
Any book! It doesn’t have to be a good book. After all, you’ll never know if it’s good until you read it! Just read. It’s a great way to relax and escape from reality, as well as getting our creative and logical juices flowing. You may also find that reading can help you figure out how to deal with your own day-to-day problems. It’s true!
Author Ceridwen Dovey says, “Reading has been shown to put our brains into a pleasurable trance-like state, similar to meditation, and it brings the same health benefits of deep relaxation and inner calm. Regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels, higher self-esteem, and lower rates of depression than non-readers.”
6. Stop putting energy into things that make you unhappy
If something in your life is making you miserable, you need to stop and reassess how badly you want to continue on the path that you’re on. Or if your job is making you unhappy, it may be time to start sending your resumes to somewhere else. If your major in school is driving you crazy, it might be time to see if there’s something else you want to do with your life. Finally, if you spend too much time on the things that make you miserable, there won’t be any time to do the things that make you happy.
7. Travel
Traveling around the world isn’t feasible for everyone. But if you can travel, you should. You don’t have to travel far – drive one state over, or stay in a new city. Traveling is a great way to meet new people, see new things, and experience new cultures that you would have otherwise been closed off to. It can help open up your entire worldview into something new.
Secretary general of the World Tourism Organization Taleb Rifai says, “Travel makes us different people. It opens our hearts, opens our minds and we see the world differently. The world will be a better place when we travel.”
We couldn’t agree more!
8. Love your reflection
Unless you’re an identical twin, there’s no one else in the world who looks just like you. And that’s amazing. It can be difficult to look at yourself in the mirror and genuinely love what you see – but it’s one of the things that will make your relationship with yourself ten times more amazing. Learning to love your reflection is something that will help you realize that you deserve all of the love that is directed your way – even from yourself.
9. Stop comparing yourself to others
If your classmates went on to college a year before you did, that’s okay. If someone younger than you is succeeding in the field you want to be in, that’s fine too. Comparing yourself to other people will only make you feel miserable about where you are now.
“While comparisons can be informative, they’re almost always discouraging, because someone’s always going to end up on the bottom,” says professor of sociology Deborah Carr, Ph.D.
You’re where you are for a reason, and things will work out for you in their own time. You should only be focusing on how to achieve your goals – not what other people have achieved.
10. Love your life
Create an environment that will make you genuinely happy, and genuinely fall in love with your life. Don’t focus on what other people have. Stop wishing that you could be doing something else, and instead just do it. Your hopes and dreams are yours to achieve, and only you will be able to make them come true.
Final thoughts
Your relationship with yourself will be the most important one you have in your entire life! It only makes sense to make these promises that will help keep you on the right track in life. When life gets too heavy or stressful, you’ll always have yourself to fall back on.
