If you’re stuck in a cycle of breaking promises to yourself and letting yourself down, this episode gives you practical ways to understand what’s going on, rebuild self-trust, and start keeping promises to yourself in ways that help you protect your peace and improve your self worth. So, Let’s Talk About Mental Health!

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Episode Overview:

Breaking promises to yourself? Let’s talk about how to trust yourself more! 

In this episode of the Let’s Talk About Mental Health podcast, I’m digging into why breaking promises to yourself can feel so defeating… and why it’s usually not because of laziness or a lack of willpower. If you keep letting yourself down, especially when you’re stressed, burnt out, or stuck in your own head, this episode will help you understand what’s really driving the pattern and how to stop letting yourself down so that you can stop punishing yourself and improve your self worth. 

I’ll walk you through practical mental health tips you can actually use: how to keep promises to yourself in small and realistic steps, how to develop self trust when your confidence is low, and how to trust yourself again after you’ve slipped. We’ll also talk people pleasing, boundaries, building self-esteem, and how rebuilding self trust helps you protect your peace, reduce stress and anxiety, and feel more solid in yourself.

👉 Ready to stop abandoning yourself and rebuild self-trust? Then let’s talk!

💡 TL;DR: Breaking promises to yourself? Tired of letting yourself down? In this episode I’ll show you why it keeps happening, and how to rebuild self-trust with practical mental health tips that help you protect your peace. 🙂

New here? Hi! Let’s Talk About Mental Health is your weekly dose of practical mental health advice for real life. I’m Jeremy Godwin (hello! 👋) and I keep things simple, honest, and doable so you can feel more in control of your life and your mental wellbeing. If you’re not already a free subscriber, sign up below to have episodes and transcripts land in your inbox every Sunday:

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Episode Transcript:

Breaking promises to yourself? How to stop

Are you tired of breaking your own promises?

If you’re someone who keeps telling yourself, “I’ll do better next week!” and then doesn’t, this episode is for you. Today we’re going to talk about what’s really going on when you keep letting yourself down, and the simple thing you can do today that can change everything about how you relate to your own promises.

So, let’s talk about… how to keep promises to yourself.

Hello and welcome back to Let’s Talk About Mental Health! I’m Jeremy Godwin, and this show is all about practical mental health advice for real life. Today we’re going to talk about what happens to your mental health when you keep letting yourself down, and how to start backing yourself again in small and realistic ways.

Because every time you tell yourself things like, “Next week will be different!” and then nothing changes, it doesn’t just affect you in that moment… it eats away at your self trust, and it affects how you see yourself. And over time it can start to feel like you’re the problem, instead of recognising that there are real reasons you keep getting stuck… as well as real solutions to get you unstuck, which is what we’re going to explore today.

So first, let’s talk about…

What letting yourself down means

So… when I talk about ‘letting yourself down’, or ‘breaking promises to yourself’, I’m not referring to the odd missed gym session or the one-off night where you stay up too late. What I mean is those repeated patterns where you keep saying that you’re going to do something that matters to you and then you don’t, over and over and over, and each time you tell yourself you’re going to do better next time… but when ‘next time’ comes, nothing actually changes.

That might look like promising yourself that you’re going to leave work on time, and then staying late yet again because you feel guilty or worried about what people will think. It might be deciding that this is the week you’re going to start going for a short walk each day for your mental health, and then every day you tell yourself you’re too tired and so you’ll just start tomorrow.

Very often this stuff is tied up with people pleasing and blurry boundaries. You tell yourself, “Next time I’m going to say no,” and then when the moment actually comes, you freeze… or maybe you just smile and say yes by default while your stomach sinks. Afterwards, you feel annoyed at yourself… but you also feel scared that if you do say no, something bad might happen; maybe someone will be upset with you, or they’ll think you’re difficult, or you’ll miss out on something.

So, yet again, you put your needs last and then you reassure yourself that you’ll fix it later. On the inside, this type of pattern really does eat away your sense of self bit by bit. You start to feel like you can’t rely on yourself to do what you say you’re going to do, even with seemingly small things like going to bed at a time that actually lets you rest.

And if you don’t feel like you can trust yourself with the small stuff, then it becomes even harder to believe that you’re going to follow through on the bigger and scarier changes that you might want to make in your life. This is not just about habits or motivation. It’s about self-trust.

Self-trust is basically your internal sense of, “When I say I’ll do something, I can believe myself because I do follow through.” It doesn’t mean that you never change your mind or that you have to get everything right all the time. It just means that, overall, you know that you’re on your own side and you take your own needs and wants seriously… not to mention knowing what’s in your own best interest.

When that trust has been damaged by years of broken promises to yourself, your brain starts to treat your own words like they’re just background noise. You’ll say, “I’m going to start writing,” or “I’ll cut contact time with that toxic person,” and another part of you quietly goes, “Sure you will!”

This can also show up as a kind of quiet hopelessness; it’s a topic that I covered back in Episode 297. You might think, “What’s the point of trying? I never stick with it anyway.” And sometimes you beat yourself up so aggressively for not following through that it actually makes it even harder to try again, because you’re associating change with shame.

So when we talk about ‘letting yourself down’ in this episode, what we’re really talking about is that cycle of making promises you genuinely care about then not following through, whether that’s because of fear or guilt or exhaustion, but then using that as evidence that you cannot be trusted by yourself. It’s painful and it’s tiring and it absolutely negatively affects your mental health… and that’s why we need to understand what’s going on underneath it so that we can then start gently building that self-trust back up.

So to do that, let’s talk about…

Why letting yourself down affects your mental health

So… when you keep breaking promises to yourself, it doesn’t just annoy you a little bit in the moment; it slowly rewires how you see yourself. Your brain is always looking for patterns and evidence. So if the pattern it sees is, “I say I’m going to do X, but then I don’t do X…” your brain quietly files that away as, “Oh, OK, interesting… so I’m someone who does not follow through.”

Over time, that can turn into really painful beliefs about yourself; things like, “I’m weak,” or “I’m unreliable,” or “I just can’t change.” And once you start telling yourself those types of stories, your motivation drops. Because why would you bother putting energy into something that you’ve already decided that you’re going to fail at?

There’s a nervous system piece here as well. If you’re already stressed, or anxious, or burnt out, your brain is going to prioritise comfort and safety rather than growth. So when you’re exhausted after work and you had a plan that you were going to go for a walk, or go and have that uncomfortable conversation with someone, or say no to something, your brain instead leans hard into short-term relief. It thinks: Avoid! Postpone! Just say yes! Go numb out! Right?!

Now, none of that means that you’re weak. It just means that your system is overwhelmed and so it’s trying to protect you. The problem is that what feels safer now often costs you a lot more later in the form of guilt and resentment, as well as feeling like you’ve let yourself down again.

Internally, a lot of this is driven by old beliefs and past experiences. If you grew up being criticised, ignored, or made to feel like your needs were too much or not important, it makes sense that now as an adult you find it hard to back yourself. You might have learned that going along with what other people wanted kept the peace… or at least kept you safe.

So, of course your mind will still lean towards people pleasing! It’s not like you’re waking up each day deliberately thinking, “Hmm, how can I sabotage myself and my life today?” You are simply following patterns that were wired a long time ago from environments where you may not have had much power.

And externally, you’re also dealing with systems that actively reward overworking, constant availability, and self-sacrifice. Let’s be honest: many workplaces praise you for staying late, or never saying no, or answering emails at all hours.

If you’ve ever had that experience of leaving on time and someone in the office pipes up and says, “Ah, finishing early, are you?” then you will know exactly what I mean! Families and social circles also can do the same type of thing, generally in more subtle ways. So they’ll do things like praising you for always being there, while also quietly taking your availability for granted.

If you add in all the pressures of life and the general noise of the world, well, you know… you can end up feeling like the only way to keep up is to continually push yourself while also putting your own needs last. It’s very hard to protect your peace when everything around you and everyone around you is screaming at you, “Do more! Be more! Give more!”

This is where actively protecting your peace really comes in, because peace isn’t just about having a quiet day every now and then or maybe having a bubble bath. It’s about feeling internally safe and aligned with your true self. When you repeatedly override your own limits and break your promises to yourself, you are sending your brain a very clear message: my needs don’t matter, and I cannot rely on me.

That creates internal noise; the kind of low level tension where you feel constantly slightly on-edge, slightly annoyed with yourself, slightly resentful of everyone else. It’s very hard to feel calm or grounded when your inner dialogue is basically, “Uh, you said you’d change and you haven’t.”

At some point, the pain of letting yourself down starts to hurt more than the discomfort of change. That’s usually the turning point; not because you suddenly become more disciplined or more motivated, but because you finally decide that being at war with yourself is too expensive mentally and emotionally.

There’s also a shame spiral that can happen. You break a promise to yourself, you feel ashamed, and then you use that shame as proof that you’re useless… which makes you feel worse, which makes it harder to take any action, and so you break more promises. It’s… it’s a horrible loop. That’s why self-compassion has to come first, because you cannot build self-trust on a foundation of self abuse.

There are two thoughts that I really want you to hold onto here throughout the rest of the episode. The first is: “Every small promise I keep to myself is a vote for the person I want to be.” And the second is: “Protecting my peace means taking my own needs seriously, even when other people don’t.”

Now, these are not just nice little quotes to write in your notebook and never see ever again. These are guiding principles for how to treat yourself when you’re tired, overwhelmed, or scared.

Look, the goal here isn’t to never mess up again; like… that is completely impossible! You are going to mess up, you are going to make mistakes… but the goal is really to slowly change the pattern, so that over time you become someone that you can rely on.

This stuff is absolutely fundamental for better mental health because it shapes how you see yourself, how you move through the world, and how safe you feel in your own life. If you don’t trust yourself, everything feels shaky. But if you start to rebuild that trust, even in tiny ways, bit by bit, then you create more internal calm, you create clearer boundaries, and you create a sense that you are actually on your own side… which is exactly what we’re aiming for.

And I’m going to explain how to do that right after this quick break!

[AD BREAK]

And welcome back! So now let’s talk about…

How to stop letting yourself down

So let’s talk about how you actually get to that place of, “I’m slowly becoming someone I can rely on.” And don’t try to do everything at once; just pick a couple of these to work on and build from there unless you’re feeling enormously ambitious and you have a lot of spare headspace!

OK, so first, here are some things you can do immediately, starting with…

Name the pattern.

At some point today or tomorrow, I want you to grab your notes app, or even better a piece of paper, and write down this sentence: “I keep letting myself down when…” and then I want you to finish that statement off with just one thing; not 10, not your entire life story, not everything about yourself that you find disappointing. Just one thing. Maybe it’s, “…when I don’t prioritise my sleep,” or “…when I don’t set boundaries at work,” or “…stick to boundaries at work.” Or maybe it’s, “…when I reply to people straight away.” Whatever it is, identify it and write it down.

Now… the moment you move from, “I’m a mess!” to, “OK, this is the main spot where I break my own word,” that’s when you’ve shifted out of vague shame and into clarity… and clarity is where real change actually starts. Next…

Make one tiny, non-negotiable promise for today.

And I do mean ‘tiny’ here; something like: “I will drink one glass of water when I get home,” or” I’ll stand outside for two minutes after lunch,” or “I’ll close my laptop five minutes earlier than yesterday.” I want you to make it so small that even the exhausted, ‘I’m totally done with everything’ version of you can manage it. Whatever it is, say it out loud, write it down, and then do it.

This isn’t actually about the water or the five minutes. It’s about teaching your brain, “When I say something small, I follow through.” I encourage you to do this as often as you can every day… as in at least once a day. Think of it like giving your self-trust a little toddler-sized dumbbell at the gym; you know, we’re not trying to lift big here… we’re just reminding ourselves that those muscles exist!

OK, so now let’s talk about some things to work on over the next couple of weeks; they’ll take a little more effort, but they’re definitely worthwhile. First…

Swap self-attack for a mini check-in.

When you notice that you’re breaking a promise to yourself this week or next week, I want you to approach it differently to the way that you normally would by default. So instead of switching straight into self-judgment mode and, you know, telling yourself “I’m hopeless!” or “I’m useless!”, instead I want you to try a ten second self-check. Pause, take a deep breath, and ask yourself: “What did I actually need in that moment?” Maybe you needed rest. Maybe you were scared. Maybe you felt guilty. Whatever it is, you’re not excusing the behaviour… you’re seeking to understand it.

Now, that small shift from self-attack to curiosity calms your nervous system, and it makes it much more likely that you’ll try again… instead of just giving up entirely and then using it as more evidence that you’re a failure. OK, next…

Test one small boundary for a week.

Over the next week or two, I would love for you to experiment with one small boundary that actively protects your peace. Just one! Keep it simple. Maybe it might be something like, “I won’t reply to non-urgent messages after 7:00 PM” or “I won’t open my work email before 8:00 AM” or “I’ll let calls go to voicemail when I’m eating.” So choose something that fits your real life, not your fantasy life, and then just test it for a week or two.

Now, expect discomfort. Expect for your brain to say to you, “This is selfish,” or “Ooh, they’re going to be annoyed with me.” That’s just your old programming. What you’re actually doing here is gently proving to yourself, “I can hold a boundary, even when it feels uncomfortable,” and that’s a huge part of rebuilding your self trust and protecting your peace… because you need to do that bit by bit, time after time, to build those skills. Next…

Use the ‘Two Minute Start’.

Alright… I want you to pick one thing that you constantly bail on; movement or exercise, journalling, tidying a corner of the house, boring admin work, whatever, and I want you to introduce a two minute start. So for the next week or two, your only job is to show up for whatever it is for two minutes a day… not to smash out a massive workout, or deep clean the kitchen. Two minutes. Set a timer if it helps.

The point is not the task itself; it’s the message that you’re sending to yourself, which is, “When I say I’ll show up, I show up… even in a tiny way.” The more you do that, over time, that chips away at the “I never stick with anything!” story that your brain keeps playing on repeat.

Now it’s time to talk through a couple of longer-term changes to work on over the next few months and beyond. These are going to make a huge difference; these are real, big things. First…

Rewrite your inner voice on purpose.

I want you to work on the way you speak to yourself if and when you break a promise. Because if every slip up turns into thoughts like, “You’re pathetic!” or, “Yep, you failed again!” then of course you’re not going to feel particularly motivated to keep trying. So start paying attention to that inner commentary, and then practice using a different script… even if it feels fake at first; something like, “I didn’t do what I planned and that’s disappointing, but I can choose one small step forward now.” Or maybe it’s just as simple as saying, “That didn’t go how I wanted, but I’m still allowed to try again.”

This is not about pretending everything is fine. It is about being firm but kind, instead of cruel. You can say to yourself, “I’m not happy with that choice” without turning it into, “I’m a useless person.”

You simply cannot build self-trust on a foundation of self-abuse. When you shift your inner voice to ‘honest but supportive’, you’re creating enough emotional safety to keep experimenting with change instead of giving up at the first sign of difficulty. And that inner tone of voice is a big part of protecting your peace, because it changes what it feels like to live inside your own head. You can learn more about improving your self-worth in Episode 305. Alright, next…

Learn to sit with guilt instead of obeying it.

Over time, I’d like you to get curious about your relationship with guilt and people pleasing. Start noticing when guilt shows up after you protect your time, or you say no to someone or something, and build your self-awareness to identify where that guilt comes from. Instead of treating that feeling as being proof that you’ve done something wrong, try labelling it instead: “This is old guilt from when my job was to keep everyone else happy.” Often, guilt is just your nervous system reacting to doing something new… not to you actually being a terrible person.

So then, from that, I want you to slowly practice sitting with that guilt… actually feeling it without immediately trying to fix it or suppress it by, you know, saying yes or over-explaining or stuffing it down and pretending it’s not there, right? So you might say something to yourself like, “This is guilt. I can feel guilty and still keep this boundary.” Or maybe it’s, “It’s OK for someone to be mildly disappointed in me. My peace matters too.”

Over time, your body learns that you can survive someone being a bit annoyed, or things not getting done instantly, and that you are still a good person even when you’re not available 24-7. That shift is massive for your self trust, because then you’re no longer sacrificing yourself at the first hint of discomfort. You’re backing yourself, kindly but firmly.

So those are the tips. Now… if it all feels like a lot, just pick one or two to work on and then build over time. You can always refer back to the transcript for the detail; you’ll find it on my website at ltamh.com/episodes.

And if you sign up to my free mailing list, you’ll also get each episode’s transcript in your inbox as soon as it’s released. It’s linked in the description below.

Conclusion

Here’s what I want you to take away from this episode. Every time you make a promise to yourself, you’re either building self-trust or damaging it… and you deserve to be someone you can rely on.

You are not lazy, or hopeless, or broken; you’re a human being who has learned certain patterns, and you can learn new ones that actually protect your peace. So what’s one simple promise you’re going to make and actually keep to yourself over the next week?

Because when you boil it all down, rebuilding self-trust is about showing up for yourself day after day in small and consistent ways.

Each week I like to finish up by sharing a quote about the topic, and I encourage you to take a few moments to really reflect on it and consider what it means to you. This week’s quote is from me, and it is…

Your relationship with yourself is the most important one you’ll ever have, so make it a healthy one.

Jeremy Godwin

Let me repeat that:

Your relationship with yourself is the most important one you’ll ever have, so make it a healthy one.

Alright… that’s it for this week! If you’d like to support the show, my Patreon will get you early ad-free episodes and extras; it’s linked below.

Thank you very much for joining me today. Look after yourself and make a conscious effort to share positivity and kindness out into the world… because you get back what you put out. Take care and talk to you next time!

Let’s Talk About Mental Health is an independent program. Discover more at ltamh.com.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Find more content at www.ltamh.com

Let’s Talk About Mental Health.
Making Mental Health Simple.

Let’s Talk About Mental Health. © 2025 Jeremy Godwin.

The information provided in this episode is for general awareness on the topic and does not constitute advice. You should consult a doctor and/or mental health professional if you’re struggling with your mental health and wellbeing. You’ll find additional information on the Resources page of this website.