Fashion Business Owner Musings: Keep Your Word to Yourself

Vocalizing our goals is the same as making promises to ourselves.

We say that we want to do something, try something, or accomplish something. We declare it. And then it’s up to us to keep our word.

Keeping our word is actually more difficult than it sounds. Especially when we have to keep the word we made to ourselves.

There’s no one to hold us accountable. There’s no one else expecting something. There’s no one waiting on us.

I think that it’s easier to keep the promises we make to someone else than it is to keep the ones we make to ourselves.

Because keeping our word to others feels like something we need to do in order to not disappoint that person, to not let them down.

But for some reason, we don’t tend to have that same sense of obligation when it comes to keeping the promises we make to ourselves. We don’t seem to worry too much about disappointing ourselves.

It’s easy to make a list of goals, daydream about the things we want, and declare with conviction that these are your goals and you can’t wait to make them happen! And all of that is wonderful. It should be done.

But if we don’t learn to create a habit of keeping our word to ourselves, then none of those things matter.

All these disciplined convictions with really good intentions, but often 3 weeks in, we find ourselves slipping. Not keeping our word. Forgetting our promises.

Listen, there’s a certain amount of slipping that we’ll all do. That’s natural. But we can’t let ourselves slip with everything. And I’m talking to myself as much as I’m talking to you.

When an idea is in the planning stage, it’s easy to decide that you will do it. It’s when the planning stops and the doing is supposed to start, that things get iffy.

When you have to do the work, when you have to try things that you’re not used to or that scare you a little, then those convictions start to weaken a bit.

We start to let things go, often out of fear.

And then we suddenly realize that all these good intentions, all these promises we made to ourselves, are not actually happening.

And that’s disappointing.

So my challenge to you is to call yourself out when you’re breaking your promises to yourself.

Remind yourself of all that you want to accomplish in your fashion business as well as the other areas of your life. Tell yourself that fear should not keep you from your goals.

And decide to keep your word to yourself.

Lots of love and encouragement,

updated signature

Nicole Giordano

Nicole is the founder of StartUp FASHION, an online resource and community supporting for independent designers around the world with building their businesses. A deep love for the craft of fashion paired with an adamant belief that success is defined by the individual, led her to found StartUp FASHION, where she helps independent designers and makers screw the traditional fashion business rules, create their own paths, and build businesses they truly love. More than anything else, she’s in the business of encouragement and works every day to remind makers and designers that they have something special to offer the world and that they can, in fact, do this thing!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.