Commit to living a better life

A reasonable definition of commitment would be that one does what they say they’re going to do, over time. So if you want to commit to living a better life ? You’ll need to do what you’re saying you will do, over time.

Not just once—but again and again. Even if it gets hard. Even if you want to quit.

If you quit after committing, then you never really committed. In reality, the commitment doesn’t come in until we’re demonstrating that we’re willing to do something more than once and we are even willing to shift other aspects of our lives in order to serve the commitment.

After years of coaching clients, here’s what I feel I can say for sure (and may this provide you some measure of comfort):

Your level of desire for the change is not necessarily defined by your level of commitment.

I have met people who want things very, very much. They think about them. They plot. They plan. They read blogs of other people who are doing them. They try things out a little, then back off. They tell others about their dreams. They make life lists.

They have a very strong level of desire.

What they are lacking when they quit because things got tough is true commitment, and this is always tied to fear.

Commit to Living a Better Life: Face Fear

Fear shows up in different ways. We often think of fear as being the “Ohmigod, I’m so scared now” stuff, the simple anxiety.

In fact, I think fear shows up sometimes as outright laziness. It shows up as resistance and suddenly feeling like something just isn’t a good idea anymore. Fear shows up as an abrupt U-Turns in plans (“Well, maybe I don’t even want to become a _________, after all,” someone might say after enthusiastically putting months of work into switching careers).

So, me being the one who works with helping people to tap into their courage and all, I think maybe a good question to ask at the outset of all this, if we’re talking about commitment, is this: what’s the fear?

Sometimes we are afraid that we don’t have what it takes and our fears are centered around our internal capacity. Sometimes we are afraid of success because it involves shifting into a new and unfamiliar identity.

Other times, though? I think that we don’t commit because commitment involves presence, and we are very afraid of getting still and present with ourselves. We are afraid of slowing down. We are afraid of getting still.

We are afraid of each and every time that we have to slow down enough from the distractions to face our fears and really see what they are. If you commit to living a better life you are going to have to face fear. You are not going to strategize your way there. You are not going to come up with an efficient system to bypass fear.

You’re just going to have to face the fear, and then face it again, and then face it again (remember, commitment is about what you’re doing not just once, but over time).

Commit to Changing Your Life: Change Your Habits

I write about how to create courageous habits so much because if you make something a habit, then it becomes something of an automated process or system in your behavior.

I wrote about this in The Courage Habit. Consider any habit you don’t like—a habit of reactivity, for instance. The reason that habits feels so hard to change is because you’ve done life that way enough times that it’s a habit, and now it is like an automated process or system in your behavior. Some people even confuse their habits of perfectionism, people-pleasing, pessimism, or self-sabotage to be “just how I am.”

It’s not “who you are” or “just how you are.” No one is born a perfectionist. That’s not genetic. Yet so many people identify so deeply with perfectionist behavior that they think it’s who they are. They announce it: “Oh, I’m just such a perfectionist” as if it’s the same as, “Oh, I’m a brunette.”

Once you have changed a habit you don’t want and swapped in the habit you do want, that new habit that’s more beneficial becomes part of your day-to-day life. Imagine if, instead of perfectionism feeling like the norm, gentleness and self-compassion and honoring what you need, was the norm?

Commit to Changing Your Life: Commit, Already

When you face fear and determine what habits you want to shift, that’s a great start. But they are nothing without true commitment.

I am such a fan of commitment and accountability because they have changed my life. There was a long span of my life where I constantly tried to wiggle out of doing what I said I’d do with excuses and justifications. “I’ve had a hard week” or “Well, maybe it’s not the right time,” or “They were rude to me first, so I was rude back—but they were rude first, so they started it.”

All excuses.

All justifications.

All bullshit.

Commitment isn’t when you feel like it. Commitment isn’t when it’s convenient. Commitment is a 24/7, all day every day path.

You’ll need to do what you say you want to do, consistently over time.

No phoning it in. No half-assing it. No pretending that because you “tried” that that’s enough.

Commit to Living a Better Life: Understand Nuance

The tricky terrain here is understanding the nuance of when you’re putting yourself down (inner critic style) versus simply being honest.

When I evaluate something I did and determine that I half-assed it, I’m simply being honest. I’m not being unkind to myself. If I half-assed it, I half-assed it. I own that.

If I refuse to accept a lame “Well, gee, I tried” even if I know that I didn’t really, truly try? That’s not being unkind to myself. “Trying” did not get the job done. I don’t “try” to be kind to someone, miss the mark, and then go to them and say, “Well, gosh, I mean, I tried to be kind to you, so give me an ‘A’ for effort and overlook the fact that ultimately, I failed, okay?”

No—I either lived up to the commitment I set for myself, or I didn’t. If I didn’t, I didn’t.

I see a lot of popular self-help messages that are so focused on trying to get people to stop beating up on themselves, that they want to pat people on the head and placate when someone genuinely missed the mark and didn’t do what they said they’d do.

The nuance here is that no, you don’t want to beat yourself up—but nor do you want to be a liar. That’s what we are being when we tell ourselves nice platitudes to try to cover over the truth that we didn’t really commit.

And there we are: the crux of it all.

If you want to commit to living a better life, you have to be willing to face yourself when you didn’t truly commit, when you didn’t truly give it your all. You have to be willing to call it what it is. You have to be honest.

Identification of where you failed to truly commit is an important part of actually being committed and getting back on track.

Commit enough that you are neither unkind to yourself nor do you let yourself off the hook from being accountable to what you said you’d do.

You say you want a better life? Commit to it. Ruthlessly. Relentlessly. Face the fear. Change the habits. And don’t tell yourself any bullshit about how you get an ‘A’ for effort if you only gave it a half-effort. Face yourself and get back to your commitment—your full, unwavering commitment to living a better life.