The Daily Stoic - It’s About The Promises You Make To Yourself

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

We all make promises to ourselves—set goals, set standards, make plans. We don’t all keep them.🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Daily Stoic early and ad free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcast. and wisdom, everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us, dailystow.com. It's about the promises you make to yourself. It's a famous story. It appears in all the great biographies of Theodore Roosevelt. Two of my favorites are The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

by Edmund Morris and Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough. It appears in Discipline is Destiny and The Obstacle is the Way. A young asthmatic Teddy, smart but frail, is approached by his father who tells him that although the boy has brains, he hasn't got the body. He hasn't got the strength to make good on his intellectual gifts. I'll make my body, Roosevelt said in response and proceeded to lift weights, hike mountains,

ride horses, wrestle, box, swim laps, and even learn judo. But there's another perspective on this story that we often glide over, for it was Teddy's sister, Corrine, who witnessed the exchange between father and son. What struck her about it years later, she said, was that this was her brother's first important promise to himself. Watching him work out in the gym and on the porch of their brownstone,

she was watching him fulfill that promise, keeping it to himself. And that's what the virtue of discipline is about. Self-discipline is about the promises you keep with yourself and not just the physical ones. It's about doing what you say and not doing what you say you won't. The decision to wake up early,

the decision not to reach for the ball, the decision to show up on time, the decision to push yourself a little further even though your body aches, the decision not to procrastinate, the decision to push yourself a little further, even though your body aches, the decision not to procrastinate, the decision to do your best. We all make promises to ourselves, set goals, set standards, make plans.

We don't all keep them. We don't all keep them. We don't all keep them. We don't all keep them. We don't all keep them. We don't all keep them. We don't all keep them. We don't all keep them.

We don't all keep them. We don't all keep them. We don't all keep them. We don't all keep them. We don't all keep them. We don't all keep them. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, would you tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey on Wondery.com slash survey.