Keeping Promises to Yourself

Why is it so easy to keep promises to everyone else—but so hard to keep the ones we make to ourselves? In this episode of Project Reclaim, Nicole Curtis explores how small, intentional choices rebuild self-trust and become the foundation for lasting confidence.

 
🐔 Stay Connected + Join the Flock

Ready to keep building confidence, courage, and a life you cluckin’ love?

 ✨ Subscribe to the show so you never miss a new episode
  👉 https://thecrazychickenladyshow.buzzsprout.com

📱 Text the Show!
  Got thoughts, questions, or just want to say hi? Tap the Text the Show  button at the end of the episode description — I love hearing from you!

📩 Prefer email?
  You can always reach me at nicole@thecrazychickenladyshow.com — I read every message myself.

💛 Let’s stay connected:
 📸 Instagram: @nicolecurtiscrazychickenlady
📘 Facebook: @nicolecurtiscrazychickenlady

Remember, friend — it’s time to Rise, Shine, and Cluckin’ Thrive, Beautiful ❤️

Keep showing up, keep growing, and keep loving your beautiful messy life. 🐓✨

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey chick, welcome back to the crazy chicken lady show. I realized when I did last week's episode for season two, I didn't even do my intro with that. Like that's my signature. So it's back, and I'm not outside recording because it is blazing hot. I don't know about where you're at, but oh man, I'm sweating bullets over here. So unfortunately, I am in my office. Hopefully, for next episode, I can get outside because I really want to be with my chickens when I record it. So you can hear all the chickens, and we have baby chicks. We hatched out 14 um babies this season. We had three mamas that sat, which is so exciting. And where we currently live, we moved here about four years ago. And so we are on our fourth generations of chickens, which is super exciting because that's how we're growing our flock. Instead of trading or buying chicks, I mean we've bought our first batch from Tractor Supply when we moved here. But ever since then, all the chickens that have that are here at our home have been hatched out here, which is exciting. Anyway, I'm so glad that you're here. If you listened to last week's episode, you know we kicked off the project reclaim. And after sharing the episode, one thing kept coming up over and over again, and in your messages, and honestly, in my own thoughts too. So I want to share it. Why is it so easy to make promises to ourselves and so hard to keep them? Have you ever noticed that? We'll show up for other people. Like we'll keep our our we'll keep our appointments, we'll meet deadlines, we'll do what we said we'd do, and then we tell ourselves, I'll start Monday. I'll take better care of myself when I'll make that phone call. I'll finally chase that dream. And somehow those promises become optional. This week I started wondering why. I don't think we break those promises because we're lazy. I don't even think it's because we don't care. I just think life happens. We get so busy, we get overwhelmed, we tell ourselves, I'll do it tomorrow, and tomorrow turns into next week, then next month. Are you following me? And then one day we wake up and realize we've stopped believing our own word. That realization hit me hard this week. Not because someone else pointed it out, because I saw it in myself. At the beginning of this year, I had all these plans, which you know from episode one. I was excited for the release of season two podcast, excited for my health journey and continuing with that, excited for everything I wanted to build. Then life interrupted those plans and my health changed dramatically. I was exhausted, I slept more than I was awake some days, I wasn't creating content, I wasn't exercising, and honestly, I started wondering if I'd ever feel like myself again. I wasn't choosing to break promises to myself. I was just in survival mode. But somewhere along the way, survival turned into hesitation. Even after I started feeling better, I caught myself thinking, maybe next week. The thing is, when you've spent months just trying to get through the day, it becomes really easy to stop making promises to yourself. And even after I started feeling better, I realized I was still waiting. Waiting for the perfect Monday, waiting until I had more energy, waiting until I felt ready. Maybe you've been there too. As I thought about all of this, I realized something. We celebrate the big milestones, don't we? The promotion, the finished book, the business launch, the weight loss. But maybe confidence isn't built in those moments. Maybe confidence grows quietly, long before anyone else notices. And as I was thinking about that this week, I started looking back over my own week. Not at the big things, at the little things, because I realized the confidence I felt by the end of the week didn't begin at the end of the week. It started with ordinary moments. One of those moments was sitting down with my Sunday roost planner. Yep, you heard that right. If you're interested in what that is, let me know. Um, but it wasn't really about writing in a planner, it was about being intentional. For the first time in a long time, I wasn't just hoping I'd have a great week. I was deciding the kind of woman I wanted to be that week. Another moment was recording episode one. I was terrified. I was so nervous to do this because I didn't really know if people would care if I'm doing it or not. And I started struggling with well, who am I really doing this for? And it first has to come from me that I'm doing this for me. I'm kind of using this as like a little journal blog, I guess, for myself of my transformation in all things in my life. But then I'm also here for you because I want to be here for you. I want to be that listening ear if you're working out or commuting, driving to work, dropping kids off, making dinner, folding that laundry, right? And so I didn't really know if you cared if I continued doing this or not. And I kept saying I was gonna start and promising myself I was gonna start, but then I kept saying, I'll just I'll wait, I'll do it next Monday, right? And hitting that record button, oh man, that was so hard. I was so nervous to do it because I just started having that little that self-doubt and that self-lack of self-trust in myself of just hit the button, just push start, just talk, just go. Like it's okay, right? Anyway, hitting record mattered to me, not because it it was a podcast, that this is a podcast, because it was a promise I made to myself and to you. There were other little promises too throughout the week, like drinking my water, planning meals, showing up. Not because those things are magical, but because each one quietly whispered, see, you can trust yourself. This week I realized I wasn't waiting to become confident anymore. I was collecting evidence. Every promise I kept, no matter how small, became another reminder that maybe I could trust myself again. By the end of the week, I picked up a pair of 15-pound dumbbells. Let me tell you, girl. And what surprised me wasn't that I could lift them. I mean a little bit, but it was that I didn't talk myself out of trying. The weights weren't the victory, they were the evidence. Evidence that trust had already been growing all week. That lesson has nothing to do with dumbbells, it has everything to do with life. And maybe that's why I wanted to share this with you. Because your promise probably doesn't look anything like mine. Maybe yours has nothing to do with health. Maybe it's finally applying for that job. Maybe it's making the phone call you've been avoiding. Maybe it's going back to school. Maybe it's starting over after a divorce. Maybe it's saying yes to counseling. Maybe it's setting a boundary. Maybe it's believing you're worthy of happiness again. Whatever your promise is, it matters because every promise you keep teaches your heart something. I can trust me. What's one promise you've been putting off? If this week's taught me anything, it's this. Reclaiming your life doesn't happen all at once. It happens one ordinary decision at a time. One promise, one choice, one act of courage, one step forward. And maybe instead of asking ourselves, how do I change my whole life? Maybe we should start asking, what's one promise I can keep today? Because today's promise might become tomorrow's confidence. Before we wrap up today's episode, I want to introduce something new, something I'm super excited about, but probably quirky, and that's okay, because that's just the crazy chicken lady. Since this is the crazy chicken lady show, I figured we should probably have at least one chicken-inspired tradition. So at the end of every episode, I'm gonna leave you with what I'm calling the egg of the week. I think of it as one small idea I'd love for you to carry with you after our conversation. Eggs are pretty incredible when you think about it. They're small, they don't look like much from the outside, but inside they hold the potential for new life. I think ideas work the same way, don't you? Sometimes one small thought, one new perspective, one little shift in how we see ourselves can grow into something that changes everything. So each week I'm gonna leave you with one egg of the week, one idea to sit with, one idea to carry into your week. And here's this week's egg. Every promise you keep to yourself becomes evidence that you can trust yourself. And trust is where confidence begins. Thank you so much for spending part of your day with me. I love doing this. I hope you love this too. You can always email me at Nicole at the Crazy Chicken Ladyshow.com. Or you can actually text the show. I'd love your feedback, but I love these little moments where we get to spend time together. It's so precious to me. If today's conversation encouraged you, I'd love for you to share this episode with someone who needs this reminder. And before next Tuesday, I want you to think about one question. What's one promise you can make to yourself this week and actually keep? Not 10, just one, because one promise might be the beginning of reclaiming something much bigger. Until next time, keep showing up, keep giving yourself grace, keep reclaiming your life, and remember Project Reclaim isn't about becoming someone new. It's about finding your way back to the person you've always been. I'm Nicole, your crazy chicken lady, and I'll see you next Tuesday.