Sorry for the thread necro, but I was a little disappointed to see that no one had responded to this thread.
As it happens, I would LOVE to run a game where my players made declarations left and right and let themselves be tossed about by compels. Sadly I think most players are too used to letting the GM dictate the course of the story to make declarations like you mentioned. Also, many of players have a hard time wrapping their heads around "something bad happening to my character is a good thing".