I’m committed!
Committed?? Gosh! I’m not stating my relationship status. Read the complete blog first.
There is a 100% rule to achieve anything, almost anything, in life, career, personal goals, and habits(say it to make or break a one). A rule one of my mentors suggested to me. He didn’t explain much cause he knew he was the life-cum-live example to prove that. All he did was to share a content instead, he wanted me to go through it.
So I bring you this blog to forward that rule to you. And it all started with curiosity. The mantra behind achieving the great pieces of stuff. I got this cause I asked. It’s strange how just asking and interacting with successful people can teach us a lot.
The Rule
I met him after a year so I was having so many questions to ask him. But I knew he wouldn’t have that much time to give. So I had to be short and crisp expecting something not mundane as every other successful people suggest.
I asked what seemed mundane and it turned out that his answer was not. How sometimes even the fundamental questions can give you the real answers in life. How sometimes even the most basic of questions can resolve the most complicated things in life. How sometimes asking the most basic things can give you a whole damn clarity.
That’s the first thing I learned that day. The question I asked next was going to be the second one.
“What’s the secret behind your success?” I asked.
“You think there is one” he smiled.
“Absolutely, hard work is there, that’s what everyone talks about. Moreover, the mentality that’s what I’m asking about. Its mindset. Tell me about your mindset. How do you freeze that mindset and keep working without losing the grip.” I continued as some curious cat does.
“100% Commitment!” Those were his final words before leaving for his important meeting.
And before I could lose his sight inside the room. My phone popped up. It was him, sharing a video inside, with an ideology behind the final words he slurred out.
Stuck in Time!
I went thru his content and connected all the dots from my past. The time when I made it. The time when I failed brutally. When I say failed, it means I gave up. I couldn’t keep it continue till the end. Whether it’s some habit that I wanted to make or break or a skill I wished to learn. It may also be a project, some goal, or whatever you can think of.
Looking back it felt like I was in a loop.
You too have found yourself in that loop more often. Yoga, Meditate, learning guitar, reading daily, waking up early, quitting smoking, making that goddamn corporate presentation within the timeline, working on your startup, writing a blog, or whatever it is in your case.
You tried, you failed, you started again, fucking failed again started all over again, and found exhausted in the end rather than achieving the desired result.
I mean why can’t we make it in a single go? At most of the places, I know that’s a little implausible. But then I hear the story about those who made it.
I mean, what are we lacking here? What are you lacking here? For god sake why do we always find ourselves in the same scenario as Dormammu found himself stuck in the time loop fighting against Dr. Strange.
Is that your willpower? Is that cause you really don’t want it that bad? or maybe you are not good enough? Maybe it’s not your cup of tea.
My answer is – You lack willpower.
That’s an incorrect answer!!!!
Willpower is a video game!
We often love doing things we are good at and avoid those which really suck. We don’t need any willpower to do them. First, because we love doing them, and second we are really good at it. Willpower plays its role when we are up to something we are new to or when there is something mundane. Just like my question.
The point is there needs no willpower to play video games cause we love them. But when you start playing it on the toughest level the same video games suck. Now willpower comes into play to keep you engaged unless you win But when you don’t win you give up. Willpower sucks.
Willpower is like a video game. If you keep relying on it. The moment you start losing, you are going to quit. The moment life starts getting tough. Willpower gets exhausted. It actually can’t work alone. It needs a wall to back it, to provide it a foundation against Katrina. No that’s not some girl that’s a hurricane.
It’s clear though we can’t play just on the basis of willpower. We can’t achieve everything on willpower. Willpower ends if the journey is fucking long and lonely.
I got it the moment I went thru my mentor content. I connected all my dots. The moment I won, the moment I gave up. I was ready to make changes.
I was ready to commit!!
The Story
Fables have a purpose. They are made to make us clear of morals. I have got too….(from the cassette).
It’s a story about two brothers. Not cousins exactly. Yes, siblings. But not twins. Yeah, twins. But the same as the North and South poles. No, not that apart. But non-existential without each other. But that’s not the main point. The main point is they were siblings and they were totally opposite to each other in character.
One brother was TIM who was running a huge business, equally productive, rich, and happy. In case I forgot to mention he had a gorgeous wife(not related to the story). He lived a life most leaders inspire us to live with the only motto lead with example. But the one thing he failed to do was to inspire his brother.
This brother whose name is TOM is just as I told opposite of TIM. He is obese, got divorced, dealing with a lack of confidence, anxiety, and hopelessness (not lover kind of). Spends all his time watching Netflix via his brother’s subscription. He knows he is doomed but the point is he is just too busy realizing that, busy watching Netflix. For him, even the motivation seems hypocritical.
Until one day……….
The Cassette
“Most people view themselves in a very less powerful way. They have a very negative story about themselves.”
“How your story about who you are and how you see yourself is generally a direct correlation with how you perform in the world.”
“How you see yourself is how you act.”
“It’s important to go from powerlessness to powerful, where you see yourself not from the current circumstances but from the circumstances that you hope to have.”
And that is how the motivational conference was going. Given by the most profound speaker of all time – Zig Ziglar
TIM has just convinced enough his brother to attend it, just for the sake of next month’s Netflix subscription. As he had promised him to give one but only if he accompanies him. Accompanies him in the best-renowned conference by Zig Ziglar.
Just after halftime that TOM was so influenced by the talks that he end up purchasing all the cassettes recording by Zig Ziglar. And end up listening to all 10 of em in a single day repeating another 10 times back to back.
What TOM was actually trying to do was to change his input. And the ideology goes this way:
“Your input shapes your outlook and outlook shapes your behavior.”
Identity x Behavior
There is another ideology that your identity or how you look at yourself defines your behavior. This identity is built upon our past experiences, decisions, and awareness.
So in order to first change our behavior we first need to change our identity. The dilemma is changing identity overnight is out of reach. The only thing which can make it happen is our COMMITMENT.
I connected all those dots when I failed and won. Since all those times when I won, I was committed. I was committed to switching my identity. I was committed that’s why there was a behavioral change in me that pushed me to do everything and succeed.
All those times I failed I failed to switch my identity. That’s why I gave up multiple times. It was never a one-time go. I couldn’t keep the morning yoga for more than a week. Couldn’t finish the presentation, and couldn’t continue learning guitar – all because I couldn’t align my identity with the desired identity.
I failed to switch identity because I failed to see myself in the future, I was not committed enough to do that. It was not a do-at-any-cost commitment that made me not to take the challenging road.
Commitment —> Identity —> Behavior
When you shift your identity first, then the behavior which is up there where your goals are, is in alignment with your identity.
If you keep your identity down there and are trying to act up there, then you are actually acting in conflict with how you see yourself. And that’s why that doesn’t work. This never worked for me too.
Back to the story
Trying something for a year is not a way to change your behavior because changing your behavior has to be first a shift in identity. Which is only possible with your commitment. – Tom understood this!
So one day, he got the idea to go and buy him a suit, a well-fitted suit. He couldn’t have them fitted himself. The interesting fact about this is that he was investing this money into his future identity and not in his current identity. Clearly, he was trying to shift his identity so he could work hard enough in order to one day wear that suit as it suits him.
He worked hard, gym, and sweat 7 days a week. He was still 300pounds when one day, running out in his tight-fitted suit and a teen pointed out to him telling his mom “what a fat-assed man is he, not even able to run” – his mom surely must have felt embarrassed but that was the point when TOM realized that he will make it and nothing can stop it from happening.
At that moment, after getting heard from that boy TOM really laughed his ass off. He couldn’t help laughing. It was because when the boy mentioned the fat-assed man. TOM didn’t take it to himself instead he too looked behind and thought the boy must be pointing out someone else.
The point why TOM laughed after that event was because he now had started not to look at himself as he used to. He had shifted his identity. Moreover, he knew now his identity is aligned with his behavior and there is no point in stopping until he gets what he wants. He was committed enough to shift his identity.
3 Years Later
TOM is as successful as his elder brother. He has his own business and lost 100 pounds. Rich, and contented in life, he now tells to everyone that he had been taking it all wrong when he was poor. He says:
We tell most of our story based on our current or past scenario. But the real difference starts making when we start telling our story based on our future identity.
This shift happens when you stop speaking from “This is why I’m the way I’m” to “This is who I’m gonna be.” which needs our 100% commitment.
He says the moment he spent n$ on his suit is the moment he invested in his future self. He was broke still he bought that expensive suit to create a point of no return. As a result, there was this identity shift due to this point-of-no-return experience.
As Oliver Wendell Holmes says – “A mind stretched by a new experience can never go back to its former dimensions.”
Are you committed?
Damn, I’m not asking about your relationship status?
All I am supposed to say is even the relationship doesn’t work if you are not 100% committed to your partner. And like relationships, anything in this life won’t ever work out if you are not 100% committed to it.
That’s what my mentor wanted me to say when he said the word “100% Commitment”. That he was not 95%, not 99% but 100% committed to his goal. That was his secret.
We often heard ourselves dreaming: “what if I did this for like 30 days or for a year?”
Rather than thinking what if I did this for like 30 days or for a year? The question that should really excite you is what would happen if I did this for the rest of my life?
WHAR WOULD HAPPEN IF I DID THIS FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE?
You just make this shift and you start seeing what’s possible. Furthermore, one thing you will realize is that “100% commitment is easier than 99% commitment”.
When you are 99% committed to something it means you are really not that truly committed to that. You are not actually fully there. You haven’t actually made the decision.
If you haven’t made a decision what that means is that you are actually not sure what you are going to do and in such cases, situations win. And you lose in this Tug of war in mind.
This tug-of-war is actually a decision fatigue. Every time people are the by-product of their situations when they are not decided.
And just getting decided is going to keep you a ton of saner in this insane world.
Do I do it? Or I don’t do it?
You can’t do everything thru your willpower, you have to do things from who you are gonna be which needs your 100% of commitment.
Adios!!