I · THE DAILY PRACTICE
Make your oath. Keep your word.
Commit to one action for your Mind, Body, and Spirit each day to promote a balanced life. Review and set your oaths each night, re-commit to them each morning, and watch yourself grow.
After dropping out of med school because I didn't feel like it was my calling, I found myself lost. I had to get a job at the mall. I started drinking, smoking, and wasting my life away on video games. I was directionless, weak, and full of excuses. This went on for several years, and the addictions grew, which caused my life to begin falling apart in many ways. I found myself at rock bottom. One day, I got tired of looking at myself in the mirror and decided I needed to make a change.
This practice was that change.
I grabbed a notebook and started writing down promises to myself that I swore to keep the next day. At first, I failed. I couldn't even keep my promises to wake up on time, much less go do a workout at the gym. Eventually, I stopped trying to aim so high and just started with simple, basic things like going for walks and reading a book for 5 minutes.
Finally, I kept my promises.
I did the same things over and over every day for several weeks, and slowly I began to trust myself again. I believed that I would do the things I said I would do. I started writing more challenging promises, and I grew even more. My workouts grew longer and more intense; I was reading whole books, and I was meditating for 30 minutes or more at a time. I was feeling like my old self again.
I started to learn how to program and found my way into engineering. I went from making $15/hr at the mall to making $200,000/yr as an engineer. I married the woman of my dreams. I have a child. Life is BEAUTIFUL AGAIN.
And it's all thanks to this practice. To these simple things. To doing the things I said I would do. It's really so simple.
Now, several years later, I have the great honor of presenting that practice wrapped into a single app, free to download, with an annual subscription priced at about the cost of a premium notebook. Oaths is the culmination of all the things I learned in the past years: the core practice of making and keeping promises to yourself; breathwork in the morning and at night, which I picked up from studying Buddhism and mindfulness; a demand scale so you can see over time if you are pushing yourself for more. It really was made with love.
It's my sincerest hope that this practice helps you as much as it helped me. I hope you will download it and build a beautiful life you can be proud of with it. Just remember—nothing, not this app, not a therapist, not religion, not God himself, can change your life; only you can. If you download it, just commit to it. Really stick to it. Grind it out.
I'll be in there with you.
— Phillip