Beating Cancer in Heels: Are you keeping your self-promise?

In life, we make a lot of what I like to call self-promises. A self-promise is when you make a promise to yourself. Sometimes or very often, we don’t keep them.

So why did we make them in the first place? Well, as humans, we try very hard to make changes in our lives as it is our survival.  With that said, it’s not always easy to do so. We might not care enough, get too busy, not believe in ourselves or a life circumstance could bring us too down even to try.

Trust me, I know. Whatever the reasons are we are not keeping our self-promise and if we can’t keep it to ourselves, how cam we keep it for others? Don’t we want to be a man or woman of our word?

When I was fighting cancer, I made a promise to myself that I was going to beat cancer in heels and I did just that, but is the fight really ever over? Am I still living up to that promise?

Fighting an illness that there is no cure for can leave you feeling a little perplexed about being cancer-free. The fear of it coming back or even fighting another illness is an anxiety that has to be managed constantly. Since one is never really safe from cancer or many other illnesses for that matter, we as individuals have to do more to protect ourselves. In fact, it should be the first self-promise that we make.

Once the doctor cleared me as being cancer-free, one of the first things I did was go out and get a cocktail. I haven’t had one for close to a year so you could imagine my excitement. I also went back to eating unhealthy foods and pretended as if I were the person I was before.

I was trying to feel as though I didn’t have to concern myself with the harsh realities of the importance of health in life.

It took a lot of coaching, therapy, hangovers, true love and some health scares to remind me that just because the storm has passed does not mean it won’t rain again. Not only should I have an umbrella ready for a storm one day, I should have purchased a raincoat, rain boots and paid more attention to the weather. What I mean by that is, don’t take your life lesson for granted.

Your self-promise, whatever that is, doesn’t have an expiration date on it. So make sure when you make it, not only do you keep it, you make it a daily part of your life.

I am now more mindful about what it is that I put into my body. While it’s not easy, I feel better knowing that I am trying my best to keep my self-promise.

Now, Coachee,  Have you made or kept your self promise?

Ask yourself…

What promise do I want to keep to myself?

How will it help me?

If you haven’t kept your self-promise, ask yourself…

What caused me to not keep it?

How can I hold myself accountable for keeping my self-promised?

Life Coach TIP: Write down your promise and put it somewhere visible and talk about it to others.

Empowerment: What would like be like without passion?

Calming sentence of the week – I am passionate about my self-promise.

That’s it for today, Coachee! Stay tuned for more tips and stories from your Life Coach Marlena!

If you are interested in being coached one on one or group coaching with FRIENDS, please contact me at [email protected]. You can also follow me on Facebook, Beating Cancer In Heels and Marlena Ortiz.

REMEMBER: Women between the ages of 20-40 diagnosed with cancer get six free coaching sessions through the nonprofit BeatingCancerInHeels.org.