I’m going to show you something that few people have ever seen: my promise sheet. A person’s promise sheet is very personal to them but it is my hope that by showing it to you, it will inspire you to be a more promising person.

Is your first thought:

What a control freak?
Or
I could never structure my life like that?
Or
It’s just too rigid?

I totally understand, but let me explain the beauty.

We already live by unconscious laws in our lives. @HGLifeCoaching (Click to Tweet!)

We already follow laws for how far over the speed limit we can go, when its appropriate to text, how mean we can be to our mothers, kids, spouses, before it’s too far, how much sleep we can skip and how much alcohol we think is still “okay.” These are what we call personal laws and everyone has them in every area. They govern how you are with your health, bad habits, sex life, career, spirituality and family.

Becoming conscious of the laws we already live by can be a big wake up call that we are living inconsistently with our ideals.

I was startled when I realized how important intimacy was to me but how little attention I gave to it, or how meaningful I felt family time was but how easily I would show up late to dinner. My coach helped me see where there was no alignment between what I thought was right and what I was actually doing.

My promise sheet was born out of those insights.

I became inspired to have my own conscious design for my life, to write and follow my own best rules. I didn’t address every area at once. In fact I don’t recommend starting with more than three areas if you are new. But I took on the most important issues in the most important areas and I made new commitments. Calling them promises makes them official and attention-worthy.

At Handel, we want you to feel powerful in your life, in control of your choices and happy with your results. We’ve found a system of promises to be a very effective tool in bringing those things about. What would you put on your list? What would you want to tackle first?

You might be thinking, “but I don’t keep my promises…” This is a very common problem. I dare you not to let it scare you off from playing the game, though. We also teach our clients a very clever way of keeping themselves on track with promises – we have them make up consequences. Because it’s hard to remember your ideals, what with the internal voices of “I don’t wanna” and “I’m too scared” incessantly pleading for attention, we need a little extra help. The natural consequences of our bad choices often don’t sting much until much later. An immediate, designed consequence makes us pay attention.

As soon as I promised to be on time to dinner and pay my kids $20 if I wasn’t, I was ALWAYS on time for dinner. Magic or the power of the right designed consequence? There are many tips and tricks to designing the just right promises and consequences for you and it’s worth spending some time to get very good at using this tool.

Love, Laurie

As Co-President and Senior Coach at Handel Group® Life Coaching, Laurie Gerber’s professional and personal mission is to better the world by teaching people to tell the truth and pursue their dreams. Her focus is on maximizing clients’ ability to thrive across all areas of life–health, love, career, money, family, etc. Laurie spreads her message of empowerment through live international events, one-on-one coaching, virtual coaching courses, as a writer, and in TV and radio appearances.  Follow Laurie on Facebook and Twitter.

If you want to learn more about creating promises and consequences and the Handel Method® in general, try our free teleseminar, A Taste of Life Coaching.