Your better life, your best life… is it a wish, a vague hope, or something more?
Your life can be an extraordinary one, where your dreams and goals are coming true, often in unexpected ways if… you commit to it.
What is Commitment?
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity,” Seneca, the Roman philosopher said. To get lucky, you want to keep going in the desired direction.
To stay the course (with all its twists and turns), you need a strong commitment. That means near 10 out of 10 in commitment, though it may fluctuate at times.
An Example
Our first couple of books were distributed by a publisher about 20 years ago. Unfortunately, due to mismanagement, the company went bankrupt before it sent us even a first check for all of our books they’ve sold. We had of course put a lot of time and our own resources to get our first books on Getting Thru to Kids and Getting Thru to Your Emotions with EFT out to the public.
Despite that financial and emotional setback, we stayed with it. As holistic practitioners and personal transformation teachers, these books were part of our dreams coming into reality, regardless of the money.
We did stay with it and lo and behold, a little company called Amazon came along. By 2000 our books were selling well.
Remembering Names
Here’s another commitment story. Phillip always “wished” he could remember a person’s name after being introduced. But like most people, he immediately forgot their name and had to awkwardly deal with this common pattern.
Until one day he “committed” to remembering names, which flipped the switch and changed the pattern.
Since it’s a top priority now, he usually remembers a person’s name. Phillip now actually puts into use the common memory techniques he already knew before. For example, he immediately uses their name once or twice in the conversation. And he associates their name with something memorable (Carol likes to sing carols).
Now he does remember having made name recall a top priority. In other words, behavior changes occur when you inflate the task’s importance to a near life-and-death commitment.
Final Thoughts
Don’t let the details get in the way of making a commitment. For instance, who could have predicted that a global pandemic would shake up the world and even (hopefully) awaken it?
You can never know many of the details of how your dream will unfold, that’s part of life’s journey. You still need a dream for a dream to come true.
Short- and long-term goals are good guideposts, but don’t get hung up on a timeline. Deadlines can put unnecessary pressure on you — and even work against the very dreams that you wish to pursue.
You can commit yourself to that wonderful life starting now. It’s a moment-to-moment, day-by-day commitment. The magic happens once you commit to yourself.
