“Modern psychology houses that when we start something and don’t complete it, or make a resolution and don’t keep it, we’re forming a habit of failure – absolute ignonimous failure.”
~Charles F. Haanel
Have you ever dreamed of something and knew in your heart of hearts, that no matter what, you would achieve or attain what was in your minds eye?
I’ll give you a personal and simple example. Back when I was in high school, I had transferred from Seoul, in the middle of 10th grade, to another high school in Tokyo. While I eventually came to love my experience, in the beginning I was anything but happy.
My life quickly fell into a spiral of depression from missing my closest friends back home. With absolutely nothing to do I started filling up my time with volunteer activities and joining literally every extracurricular activity my school offered.
Why did I do that? Well, the new goal that quickly formed in my mind was, “I’m going to get into the college of my choice”, because for me, going to college symbolized freedom and adulthood. Having all this free time gave me a way to transform all the stagnant, depressive energy into something useful and by the time that goal was cemented into my brain I knew there was no way around it.
That was my first experience with true commitment.
There was no other option. Nothing held a candle to my goal that would have had me choose my actions differently. It became simple in my minds eye; LIFE became simple because everything either helped my goal or didn’t help my goal.
And trust me, I failed a lot. I tried my hand at joining the JV volleyball team and boy did I seriously NOT make the cut! There were looks and possible thoughts of, “wow, she’s really trying out for this?”, but guess what? I didn’t even blink an eye. People’s opinion (which by the way we truly have no way of validating everyone’s opinion) ranked so low on my priority list toward true commitment that it wasn’t even a concept to consider or to take the time thinking about.
When we have true commitment towards a goal it also helps us to get to where we want to be FASTER. We don’t allow doubt to enter our minds. We don’t allow other shiny objects distract us from our vision. We see with picture perfect clarity what is important to us in order to achieve our dream.
Finding true commitment is a personal journey. No one can do this for you because only YOU know you. You know what makes yourself tick and gets you going. No one else can determine your dream and that’s the beauty of doing the work to getting to know our inner world.
True commitment also takes work. We need to find and break through limiting beliefs, but what I’ve also found is that when you truly find your true commitment, this new commitment often becomes your new anchoring belief, and this anchoring belief obliterates any limiting beliefs you might have had previously.
So, what dreams did you dream for 2018? If you haven’t started yet, or are struggling with start/stop mentality (this is when you find yourself starting and then stopping), what is the thought that is holding you back? Can you take the time to identify what your true commitment is for each of your dreams?
When you get good at commitment and following through on your own word, you also build confidence. You begin to understand that obstacles are just hurdles to overcome and nothing is unsolvable. And when you continue to do this, you begin to build personal resilience. And that my friend, is power.
In wellness,
Susan
Susan is a Life Coach based in Seattle, WA. Her main focus is to coach people build a strong emotional container so that we can experience the fullness of life coming from a place of deep confidence. Susan also coaches clients looking to heal adrenal fatigue by using a mental meta-model aimed at breaking down old mental patterns and behaviors so that we can finally tap into our own personal power.
Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash
