It has long been a known fact that stating your goals out loud and/or writing them down, means that you are more likely to achieve them.

Via the wonders of social media, I came across this awesome website today, called Because I Said I Would.

Because I Said I Would came into being when Alex Sheen’s father was dying.  Alex wanted to find a way to honour his father’s value of “being a man of his word”, because his Dad had made certain promises to him.  And so after his father’s death Alex created the concept of ‘promise cards’, founded ‘Because I Said I Would’ and committed to sending ten free cards to anyone in the world who asked for them.

In the first year and a half they posted out 1.27million of these promise cards.

The Because I Said I Would movement has created significant positive ripples throughout the world – people from countries all over the globe are writing their promises on these cards and posting them on social media for the world to see, to help them commit to keeping those promises.

Promises they make to others.

Promises they make to themselves.

Promises they make to their community, or their family, or their faith.

Anything and everything goes, from giving up smoking or losing weight, to running marathons and raising a certain mount of money to charity.  From promising to be a better mother or father or husband or wife, to volunteering once a week at the local homeless shelter.  A man with cancer promised to write 826 ‘napkin notes’ to put in his daughter’s lunchbox – enough for one per day every day until she graduates, so that she’ll always have one in there even if he passes away before she finishes her formal education.

It’s powerfully inspiring stuff.

I can really see the potential for using these cards with both my therapy and my coaching clients.  I’ve just ordered my batch of ten to try out, so the chances are, if you are a therapy or coaching client of mine reading this blog post, at some point in the next month or so I’ll be asking you to write down a promise that you are committed to keeping to help you take one step closer to where and who you want to be.  Start thinking about it now.

My mind is whirring with possibilities!

I’ll be filling in my own promise card too, and I’ll post about it here when I’ve done so.

In the meantime, check out this video to find out more:

What will your promise be…?