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Most of us think the problem is energy.

If we could just get a little more, we’d update the résumé, write the cover letter, follow up with a former colleague, get the certification.

But when you keep making promises you don’t keep, the real cost isn’t momentum. It’s self trust.

And once self trust takes a hit, your brain and body get conservative with energy. Not to punish you. To protect you.

The problem is, that protection can keep you stuck.

Here’s what I mean.

If you’ve made a lot of plans and you didn’t follow through on them, your brain starts to treat these plans as make-believe. They aren’t real so you don’t have to pay attention to them. It’s your brain trying to stop you from not feeling bad about breaking a promise to yourself.

You may not realize this, but disappointment takes energy. Shame takes energy. That internal argument you have with yourself after you don’t do the thing takes energy.

Your system tries a different strategy. It reduces the fuel you need to do the thing you know you need to do. So you literally don’t have the energy to fulfill the promise (or the plan) that you made. The reduction of fuel makes starting feel like mud. It’s a way for your system to say: let’s not risk another broken promise and the shame spiral that follows.

So here’s how to get your energy back. Stop trying to force motivation. Start rebuilding self trust.

The 80 Percent Promise Method

Only make a promise to yourself that you’re 80 percent confident you can keep. Not 90 percent. Certainly not 100 percent. 80 percent is the sweet spot because it’s doable. And it creates evidence that you can keep a promise which helps your brain realize those promises are real.

Here’s how it works.

* Make the promise small enough to finish in under ten minutes.Make it a single step. Not a project. Example: “Find the most recent version of my resume in my files.” Not: “Update my resume.”

* Identify what might stop you from keeping the promise. Don’t judge. Just be honest. Maybe it’s technology issues. Maybe your kid gets a cold. Maybe you run out of time. Maybe you hit an emotional wall. The point isn’t to fix your personality. The point is to name the friction that might pop up.

* Choose an antidote for that obstacle. If the obstacle is time, the antidote might be reprioritizing with the help of an objective friend. If the obstacle is tech, the antidote might be to know exactly who you can call whether it’s a hired hand or your teenager. If the obstacle is interruptions, the antidote might be setting a ten minute boundary and locking the door to your room.

* Take the antidote! Then write a permission slip to readjust because life happens. This matters more than it sounds. You’re not failing. You’re adapting to real time issues. Your permission slip can be one sentence: “If my kid gets the flu, I will reset without shaming myself.”

* Hard stop after you deliver on your promise. This is where self trust gets rebuilt. You said one thing. You did one thing. Then you stop. You’re proving reliability, not trying to squeeze out productivity.

* Reward yourself. Make it simple and real. Give yourself a sticker. Share the win with someone you love. Take a moment to look in the mirror and say thank you. You’re teaching your brain and body that keeping promises to yourself counts.

Over time, this does something sneaky and powerful. You start believing in yourself again. And when you believe in yourself, energy shows up. It’s amazing.

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A quick case study: Richie and the ten minute promise

When I met Richie, he kept telling me the same thing: “I know I need to update my resume. I just can’t seem to get myself to do it.”

He wasn’t confused about the steps. He was stuck in the loop.

The old approach sounded like this: “Tonight I’m going to update my resume.”And then life would happen. The dishwasher imploded, his kid got detention and needed extra attention, his laptop battery died. When these things happened, the next morning, he didn’t just feel behind. He felt angry with himself. Which made updating his resume feel like more proof that he was “lazy.” So he avoided it. And the self trust took another hit.

So we tried something different. Not bigger effort. Smaller promises.

Here was Richie’s 80 percent promise: “Tomorrow at 10:00 am, I will find the most recent version of my resume in my files.”

That’s it. Not update it. Not rewrite it. Just locate it.

Then we did the honesty step. What might stop him?

For Richie, it was three things. He’d open his laptop and immediately get hijacked by email. He’d start searching for the file, get irritated that he couldn’t find it, and then bail. Or he’d get interrupted and tell himself he’d come back later.

So we chose antidotes that matched the real obstacles.

Notifications off for ten minutes. A simple search plan: search his email for “resume,” then check downloads, then search his files. And a quick boundary: a ten minute timer, plus a heads up to the people around him that he was unavailable until it went off.

Then the permission slip: “If something derails this, I will reset later today without making it mean something bad about me.”

When 10:00 am came, he did the one thing. He searched with clarity on what success meant. If he found the resume within ten minutes, great. Hard stop. Reward.

If he didn’t find it within ten minutes, he still got to count the win. Because the promise wasn’t “find the resume.” The promise was “search for ten minutes.”

At minute ten, he stopped, took a breath, and faced a hard truth: The resume wasn’t findable. Richie needed to start from scratch.

That moment could have turned into shame. Instead, we treated it as clarity and made the next 80 percent promise: “Tomorrow at 10:00 am, I will open a blank document and write my last two job titles.”

Not build the whole thing. Not format it. Just lay the first brick.

Small? Yes.

But that’s the point. Richie wasn’t building a resume in one sitting. He was rebuilding trust.

And once he started collecting proof that he could keep promises to himself, his energy shifted. Not because his life got easier overnight. Because he stopped treating his own commitments like optional suggestions.

That’s what restores momentum. Energy isn’t just physical. It’s trust in motion.

Bottom Line

If you’re waiting for energy to show up before you take action, you may be waiting a while. In career transitions, energy comes second. Self trust comes first.

When you make big promises and break them, your brain starts treating your plans like make believe. It’s trying to protect you from the emotional cost of another letdown. The problem is that protection shows up as low energy.

So don’t push harder. Become believable to yourself again.

Try this once in the next 24 hours: make one 80% promise that takes ten minutes, do it, stop, reward the win. That’s the practice.

And if you lead a team, zoom out for a second. The same dynamic shows up at work. When commitments keep getting made and broken, trust erodes. Energy drops. Pressure makes it worse.

If you’re a senior leader and this feels familiar, I’d love to hear what you’re seeing. I have a few 1:1 coaching spots open right now, and I also work with leaders and teams who want to rebuild trust and follow through after disruption without turning the workplace into a therapy session. If you want to explore what this could look like in your organization, DM me and we’ll set up a time to talk.

If someone came to mind while you were reading this—please send it their way. You never know the impact a well-timed message can have.

Related Content

* Is Uncertainty Blocking Your Career Growth?

* How To Bounce Back From Blunders

* What’s Really Driving You?

Perks for Paid Members

Moonshot Mentor is for people and teams moving through professional change that hits harder than expected. Get short monthly video lessons on career grief, plus a simple guide that helps you turn insight into your next right step, live monthly coaching to work through what’s happening in real time, and weekly meditations and journal prompts to steady yourself and move forward with clarity.

Journal Prompts

Here are 3 journal prompts for paid Moonshot Mentor members. You can use these to start to rebuild self trust. Remember, we start with small micro steps.