We had an amazing time last 6 days at work. The highlight and takeaway for me personally, along with so many other things was that I started running again. I have been low on energy physically since last August. I hardly exercised and finally started yoga and walking in January of this year. But I was not able to push myself to run. So I let it be. Finally since the beginning of last week, as part of warm up sessions I started running for a minute or so. This gave me the motivation and confidence I needed to start or at least try to get back to running.
After a hectic week, we had 2 days off from work.
Day 1 - I had consciously decided that I would wake up late and not do anything. I literally did nothing other than watching TV and some work I had to finish.
Day 2 - I started the day by stepping out for a run/walk.
The reason for narrating the whole story is to mention something that happened during the run 
I did my usual 6km distance with a combination of run and walk. Running was not a piece of cake. So I had to figure out a way to make running fun and somehow easy. I used to choose a landmark and tell my mind that I would run only till that point and then switch to walking. The key was in keeping up that promise - to run only till the landmark - not to stop before the point and also not to run beyond the point. It may sound silly that I am saying I shouldn't run beyond the decided point even if I could. But while running it suddenly hit me that everything comes down to keeping up the promises that we make to ourselves and to others.
Let me try to explain. Promises are made to be kept, whether to ourselves or to others. Just like we lose trust in the person when they break a promise made to us, our mind also loses the trust in ourselves when we don't keep up the promise we have made to ourselves. When I say promise to myself - it includes all the things we tell ourselves, all the self-talk, all our to-dos, all our resolutions, all our goals - all these are promises we are making to ourselves.
A promise is
what I am telling myself I will cook,
what time I decide I want to wake up,
what decide I want to read
what I decide I am going to shop
making that call
talking to someone
preparing for an exam
watching tv
pampering ourselves
not doing anything
choosing to sleep
booking that ticket
- it is everything that we tell our mind every moment.
The key is to follow through. Of course there are external factors that may prevent us from keeping a particular promise, but we cannot betray our mind for no reason. We ourselves cannot be the reason for not fulfilling the promise. An external factor can break the promise, but WE CAN NEVER BREAK the promise. This does not mean we stress or worry about the promises we make. It just means that we need to be clear before we make a promise. We should be able to realize what we are capable of before making a promise to ourselves.
When we are the reason for breaking our own promise, all sorts of conflicts arise. The mind gets confused when we betray ourselves. And when our mind is confused we start seeing the same confusion in our outer world. So depending on the promise we have broken (to ourselves), we see the exact same thing in the outside world.
I guess that is the reason we say, what we are inside is what we see in others (in the outside world).
Here's to keeping promises 
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