176: Keeping Your Word to Yourself
How good are you about keeping your word to yourself when it comes to physical and spiritual health goals? When life gets busy or things get hard do you show up or give up? Most of us are pretty good at keeping our word to family, friends and coworkers. We’ll bend over backwards to make time to serve the needs of others but not the needs of our physical and spiritual health.
In this week’s podcast we’re talking about the importance of keeping your word to yourself and how it impacts your body and your brain. You want your body to make major metabolic shifts? It needs to know you’re committed (and not about to yo-yo again). You want your brain to push through the discomfort? It needs to have faith in your follow-through.
Listen to this episode to get ready to pick an October goal and keep your word to yourself.
EPISODE 176: Keeping Your Word to Yourself
Show Notes
(0:00) Intro
Hello my friend! Welcome back to the club, how are you today?
We are going to talk about keeping your word to yourself. How good are you about that?
Most of us are pretty good at keeping our word to family, to friends, to coworkers and to neighbors, but not always to ourselves - especially when it comes to our health goals.
Time is one aspect of it. In our busy lives the things that usually fall through the cracks or get put on the back burner are our health and spiritual goals.
But sometimes it’s because we overload ourselves with too many goals at once, and sometimes it’s because we throw in the towel when things get hard.
No matter the reason, breaking your word to yourself over and over hurts.
(3:02) The consequences of yo-yo dieting:
One thing I explain to my Feast 2 Fasters is that if you have a history of yo yo dieting, which is one form of breaking your word to yourself - your body is going to be more guarded about releasing weight.
Fat burning vs. Sugar burning
Why you feel yucky during a sugar detox
Making the metabolic shift
Your body is not against you, it’s not trying to be difficult. It’s just a little resistant, a little guarded in making these new energy plans with you just like you’d be resistant making plans with your friend who always cancels on you.
Your body is trying to protect you. And the more you have yo-yo’d the more you have signaled the body that the food supply is unstable. So your body will want to hold onto energy - aka fat, fat is stored energy on the body - it wants to make sure you have enough energy to keep you alive in case there’s another food crisis (famine).
Poor nutrition is one form of starvation. You can get plenty of calories but not enough nutrition. And that’s very stressful to the body.
(6:35) The emotional component of keeping your word to yourself:
Perhaps the saddest thing is that you fall out of integrity with yourself.
When you’ve broken your word to yourself so many times you stop trusting yourself, you stop believing in yourself. You emotionally store the pattern o f breaking your word to yourself and this becomes a problem when you’re ready to tackle a new goal.
There’s an undercurrent of doubt running through your mind which - whether you realize it or not - consciously or subconsciously - influences how you approach that goal. Those seeds of doubt take deep root in your brain and fuel thoughts like:
I can’t do this, This is never going to work, This is too much to do, too much to handle, I’ll start over when the timing is better.
The result of breaking your word to yourself gives you more ammunition for breaking your word to yourself.
You store that evidence of not following through and you use that evidence against yourself. And that can be a hard hamster wheel to get off of. Unless you interrupt that pattern - Keeping your word to yourself is like 10x more powerful than breaking your word to yourself.
(8:30) Think about where you would be if you had followed through with a health goal that you have struggle with in the past:
How would you be different right now? How would your body be different? Would it be leaner? Stronger? Would your jeans slide up and button more easily? Would you climb the stairs without breathing heavily? Would you be less stiff and more active?
How would your brain be different right now? More sharp? More focused? More at peace?
When we don’t keep our word - when our word stays in our head - it makes us crazy.
It takes up a lot of real estate up there because we’re going back and forth with I’m gonna, I shoulda, I wish I woulda - on repeat, on a loop.
There’s got to be intention and the follow through - or just let it go. And OWN that.
That reminds me of a verse from James 1:8
A double-minded person is unstable in all they do.
It also says: the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
(11:45) Getting real about the goals we have:
I shelved a goal recently because I’m just not ready to commit to it.
And It frees my brain up to focus on the goals I DO have - to give more energy to those because I’m not wasting brain energy on goals that I don’t intend to keep right now. I’m not making the word to myself if I’m going to break the word to myself.
(13:30) The Bible has a lot to say about words:
Proverbs 18:21 says, Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.
Words mean things. They can build up or tear down. They impact, they produce a result - a fruit. You will eat the fruit of keeping your word to yourself or breaking your word to yourself.
Breaking our word to ourself is a disappointment, a let down. And it does not go unnoticed by our body or our brain.
Let the next goal you make be with the intention of KEEPING your word to yourself. That’s what we’re about to work on in The Christian Health Club. October is the month we do self-coaching Christians together. We’re going to choose a goal, we’re going to own it.
When we keep God’s word to ourself it’s much easier to keep our own word to ourself. We build more faith, more trust, more love and more grace into our lives.
(16:20) Outro & Disclaimer
Thanks for listening! Have a healthy and blessed week!