Consistency Is A Commitment

We're recently back from Molly and Joe's wedding. It was lovely, a perfectly joyous experience. We are still enjoying the warm afterglow from happy times like these. Feeling really grateful.

The whole event was a wonderful demonstration of commitment - two people wholeheartedly pledging their loyalty and devotion to each other, the sincerest of promises, to the exclusion of all others, for life.

It got me pondering commitment and consistency. We've been exploring the attributes of our most successful members and their admirable consistency. We established that consistent people are optimists and essentialists.

We can add that consistent people are committed people.

"Committed" is a word that gets thrown around a lot and lost some of its meaning. Let's define it more clearly.

Committed means to be loyally bound, dedicated, or obligated, as under a solemn pledge or promise.

When we commit to someone or something, we unreservedly promise to put that person or thing ahead of our own interests and needs and continue to do so, despite conflicting demands and competing priorities, until such time as we are relieved of our commitment. As I mentioned above, this is a solemn pledge. We wouldn't willingly break such a promise under any circumstances.

We love, admire, and rely upon people throughout our lives who stand by their commitments. Likewise, we despise, avoid, and, most times, come to hate people who do not.

Our members who are consistent make a commitment to themselves to put food, fitness, and function as a top priority in their lives.

An interesting observation about humanity... we will make herculean efforts to deliver on the commitments we make to others, but then, with only a glimmer of guilt, we will come up with any plausible justification to break similar commitments we've made to ourselves. Hmmm? 

Most people I know are good people. They live up to their commitments and deliver on their promises. And when they can't, for whatever reason, they feel terrible and will go to the ends of the earth to try to make that up to whomever they let down.

But, many of these same people will routinely let themselves down and fail to live up to commitments they make to themselves. 

Our consistent members don't do this. They treat the promise that they've made to themselves with the same solemn and sacred sense of obligation that they would as if they'd made it to someone who loves and depends upon them.

It really comes down to how we allocate, preserve, and invest our hours and days.

Our consistent members devote a certain number of them each week to take care of themselves. Then they vigorously defend those hours against every sort of distraction and intrusion that Busyness throws at them.

They stay true to the promises they make to themselves, just like they would to a spouse or friend. Just like Molly and Joe pledged to do. 

It's really that simple.

Here’s a practical tip... use a Habit Tracker.

It's a wonderfully simple tool that can help you stay true to your commitments and be more consistent. List a few daily behaviors that will move you forward toward your goals. Then fill in the circles every day when you've completed them. I think you’ll find that filling in each little circle is amazingly gratifying. It’s a little dopamine rush. 

Want one? Cool, we had a bunch printed. Click here and fill out this quick form and we'll drop one in the mail to you. Our only ask is that you post it somewhere prominent and USE it. Then help us spread the good word by taking a photo at the end of the month and sharing it on social media. 

Work it. Live it. Keep it. 

MidStrong is for life.