100% Commitment.
Episode 23 Do You Have The Guts
“99 percent is a bitch. 100 percent is a breeze.” Jack Canfield, the best-selling author of The Success Principles.
And that, my friends, is the topic today. 100% all out, full throttle commitment…to yourself.
We think we are committed. We think doing pretty good at all the things that support our goals in life most of the time is good enough. We are not quite satisfied with our results, but the effort going into them seems somewhat profound and prolific even if you’re overcoming habits.
I’d like to offer the idea that this story we are living isn’t true. That cycle of 98% effort, unintentionally falling away from the habits that are pushing us forward towards well being…that cycle of stopping and starting again…THAT is what is truly exhausting us.
98% Effort is Exhausting
It’s exhausting our bodies on the inside. Think about it. For 5 days a week you maintain incredible nutrition. Maybe you struggle through it, or perhaps it flows because you think of your body as a living, breathing organism that you take really good care of…But 5 days a week you are on point.
Then the day off rolls around.
Weekending begins.
And your body might not get any nutrition until Monday. It might even be poisoned a few times over that 48 hour time span. It might be over run with sugar and foods that taste INCREDIBLE but leave you in discomfort either from too much of them or because you feel the difficulty of digesting them because you are so clean M-F.
(Yes, side note. You will feel food differently if you allow your body to detox and get clean. When I am eating clean I can feel the effects of caffeine in my coffee 10x as much.)
It’s that starting and stopping effort that is exhausting, draining, intrusive…not the goal we want to be committed to.
It’s not eating nutritionally dense that is difficult, it’s stopping and starting that is hard.
Why 98% Effort is Exhausting
This consumes energy without producing results. It’s stressful. It makes us feel like failures when we’re not.
A 100% Lifestyle is so much more efficient. We are going to focus on being committed to ourselves around well being throughout this episode.
Don’t want to give up you favorite ‘cheats’? Hear me out. You can live a 100% lifestyle that includes dessert. Remember, we are concentrating on commitment to ourselves. That includes diet, exercise and everything that creates the life we are living.
Indulgence can be conscious.
When it’s uncouscious – grabbing a handful of cookies as you walk by the kitchen because it’s Saturday. That’s an example. You aren’t planning it, you don’t need it, you aren’t hungry, but it’s Saturday so you whimsically eat and drink and live life in a chair….That’s different from a few glasses of wine with a fun dinner on Saturday evening.
Being 100% committed to a nutritious lifestyle that supports your well being builds self confidence, self belief, a body that feels good, and it’s easier than weaving in and out of the commitment to yourself. If you’re breaking a lot of little promises to yourself in that 2%, you’re going to feel stuck.
I stumbled upon the 100% rule very much on accident.
I was into my 3rd round of a fitness bootcamp and my coach saw clearly that I wasn’t committed to the process. I was committed to certain things, but not to everything they asked of me. I was excited to be working with a different coach and her response to the weekly check in took me by surprise. She sent me the 98% video. And she asked me why I wasn’t committed 100%. Said I was making things more difficult by doubting the process and not participating fully.
Well…I quit after that bootcamp. Craig even encouraged me to do so because my focus was all wrong and i was obsessing in unhealthy ways over my food and the group. SO…
I quit. To a degree, I failed. Though I did fail forward and that’s a good thing.
I went back to my originally suggested macros.
And I COMMITTED. 100%.
Sidenote: Ultimately my diet - even my clean, whole food lifestyle was not going to help me past a certain point because I had an overgrowth, or imbalance in my gut. I was still suffering from leaky gut at this point though it was way better…my metabolic furnace was not functioning at full throttle yet.
I learned that all of the little distractions and obsessions were irrelevant. 1700 vs 1500 calories a day was irrelevant. I watched that video multiple times and the 100% rule found its way into a permanent belief system in my life…and I let go of outcomes.
I let go of what weight loss would/should look like and I concentrated 100% on the process.
Enjoying the daily grind and finding ways to make it compelling and fulfilling. So I let go of the number, I stopped weighing and I drilled down on self discipline. I found systems for my personal life that included an evening and morning routine, and I built an amazing system of discipline that rules my world to this day.
I might miss once, but never twice was also a mantra of mine. I decided ahead of time if I wasn’t able to exercise on vacation, that was ok. I’d take a break, stay physical and resume the schedule upon returning home. (Making that decision ahead of time is huge. This allows for a conscious indulgence that begins and ends.)
Now my food life hasn’t been as strict over the last year, and my exercise life is not as intense as I’d like it to be, but I remain 100% committed to a way of life that has allowed me to maintain weight loss, build a business and LIVE my life so much more than I ever have in decades past. There are certain daily tasks and ways of being that happen to be the WAY I live, and I am committed to that. I don’t have to decide if I’m going to do something. The decision is already made because I’m 100% committed.
If 100% Commitment is your one thing - you just know you could do it if you could only commit for real…this is THE episode for you. Plus you’ll be able to digest this idea without the criticism I veiled it with when I first learned this theory.
Where does the 100% Rule Come From?
Benjamin Hardy is an organizational psychologist and best-selling author of the books Willpower Doesn't Work and Personality Isn't Permanent. His blogs on productivity and psychology have been read by millions and featured in the Harvard Business Review, the New York Times, and many others. Benjamin Hardy coined the 100% Rule. It was his Ted Talk that I watched during that bootcamp that stuck with me and changed everything. Here is the link to this inspiring message.
My favorite quote from this video is, “How you do anything is how you do everything.”
98% committed sounds really good. That’s doing the thing more than 80% of the time! This is a disciplined life, right?! But 20% of the time you are not participating in the needle moving actions that will help you get closer to well being, or weight loss, or thinking differently. You never REALLY decided to commit, according to Hardy. And I agree.
What happens in that 2% ? I can tell you that a whole lot of "back-and-forth" decision-making process happen in the 2%, and it leads to decision fatigue or a loss of willpower. Situations are more powerful than internal desires- especially when starting a new habit. So if you haven’t fully committed, you don’t really know what you are going to do…and the situation wins.
I promise that you will view commitment differently after this chat my friends, and I hope you see commitment to yourself through a new lens. Let’s dive into the nitty gritty of how to commit 100%.
If this doesn’t change your life, don’t worry. The Ted Talkfrom Benjamin Hardy will.
What is commitment?
the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, etc.
"the company's commitment to quality"
How do I commit 100% to myself?
First and foremost, know that creating this intention of commitment is going to create disharmony possibly, self doubt, and general resistance. It’s a new idea and your brain won’t like it. It might feel uncomfortable because you’ve broken a lot of promises to yourself over the years with regards to food and exercise. Know that resistance of all kinds is coming.
Second, be open to change. Be open to the idea that you are wrong about yourself. This truth you are living by is a lie, and you’ve been wrong about it from day 1 of thinking it, you just never realized to release the thought. Instead it’s a thought that the world and your situation support, so you think it a lot. Here are a few examples.
It's easier to stay this way.
Exercise doesn’t work for me.
I hate to sweat…
What stories are you telling yourself about committing to exercise and nutrition? All of the reasons you think you can’t, all of the insults your inner critic hurls at the idea of this change, are resistance. Observe it and wonder if this is what stopped you in the past.
Become a person who changes their results and outcomes by discovering the emotions and feelings creating all that resistance. Once you notice and become aware of the story or the lie that is wrong about you, you can change the story and the outcome. If you stay stubborn and never notice, you’re stuck.
Implementation Intentions
Benjamin Hardy talks about Implementation Intentions as a way to respond to various situations that will throw you off track when you are becoming this new person. Having a few of these in your back pocket is good because we are usually not used to responding No
You create an "if-then" scenario, such as,
"When Steve offers me a soda, I will tell him I don’t drink soda anymore."
“When Heather offers me cake, I’ll tell her I’m not having cake today.”
Really, we are talking about no half stepping. No sip of soda or bite of cake just for a taste. I’m just not imbibing today friend.
100% commitment means you keep the promise to yourself. You’ve already decided what that is with your thinking brain and you are training your primal brain that lives in the fight or flight moment that you don’t make decisisions with him/her.
Most importantly, DECIDE.
The Latin root of the word “decision” is incision. It means to cut away alternative options, so when you decide to do something you cut away distractions and even emotions that get in the way. Sometimes that’s in our own head, sometimes it’s a way of life we leave behind, and sometimes it takes those closest to us a while to jump on board. They might even feel resentful because you are changing and they want to, but they are not committed to the process! This can feel disconnected, but leading by example is the way to go here.
As Mel Robbins says, nobody is coming to save you. No one else is coming to save the day, offer a magic pill to eliminate your high stress and protect your well being.
Only you can do this. When you do, you are often a light in the dark for others to follow.
Why Commitment To You Matters So much
In his Ted Talk, Benjamin Hardy explains if you're only 98 percent committed to a diet, in every future situation you're in, you have to ask yourself, "Is this one of those times I'm going to eat outside the diet?"
By asking this question, usually, while you're in the heat of the moment, you have to weigh back-and-forth in your mind what you're going to do. This whole "back-and-forth" decision-making process leads to decision fatigue or a loss of willpower.
This is exactly where the situation wins because your primal brain is making the decision in the moment. Social psychology research has found this repeatedly for decades: Situations are often more powerful than internal desires.
That part of your brain making decisions in the moment is either seeking approval, seeking pleasure, or avoiding pain. Planning ahead and living a ‘committed’ lifestyle means you’ve chosen your food, your path or exercise ahead of time and you are following the plan because your thinking brain knows best. We develop the muscle of discipline because we’ve retrained our brains to respond by following the plan, not deciding in the moment.
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Lack of commitment also prevents you from being able to predict how you will choose, or how you will show up. You cannot predict your own behavior if you are relying on that primal brain. Everything is reactionary.
We often enter situations where we don't know what the outcome will be.
We deal with decision fatigue ALL THE TIME smack dab in the middle of an unideal decision-making situations, like being offered our favorite dessert.
Benjamin Hardy says that By watching yourself repeatedly fail on your "commitment," your identity becomes confused as does your confidence.
I agree with that 100%. This is how broken promises to ourselves erode our self belief and confidence which ultimately build our identity.
The result is an inability to commit fully to the decision or goal you want for yourself in the future.
The author Robert Brault has a quote for this: “We are kept from our goal not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.”
More simply put, start with small or tiny steps. Let’s talk about steps to get out of this cycle and into full on commitment to ourselves.
Tiny Steps Towards Committing 100%
I love Ed Mylett’s formula for Problem Solving when it comes to commitment to yourself:
Decide. This means you’ll be cutting away foods, ideas, people that get in your way…or you don’t attach yourself to them with regards to the outcome of the decision you’ve made.
Flood yourself with certainty. Write down ALL the reasons this is a good decision and why it will help. Go back to this list when doubt arises (or anything else that gets in your way)
Take action: eat the food, go for the exercise when you plan it, capture the thought regularly and change it, stick to routines, plan indulgences so there is no indecision city in the moment
You might even remind yourself of these daily as part of a routine. This allows you to take real action. I am a big believer in starting small. I could quote so many amazingly brilliant people that say this too…
Ed Mylett is a great way to fill your Instagram feed with real dose of practical life skills & inspiration.
It’s important NOT to do this when committing
Now, treating your body like a jerk. Let me just be real. This is not sustainable… it might be working your body to death after eating cake or starving it to death when you plan to eat cake…it might be looking at yourself and declaring how awful and terrible you look. I think this is very weird, but true. Your body hears you. It doesn’t respond well to this attitude.
This is a part of the 98% committed lifestyle that so many of us fall prey to – especially when we are not creating a new lifestyle with a holistic approach. Holistic well being means considering the whole of you – your body, mind, spirit, thoughts, feelings and more when you make decisions.
If you are on a journey to change the way you look and feel, I highly recommend taking an approach of seeking well being. That will lead to answers in every category.
Being mean to yourself does not create consistency long term, self like/love, or anything good really!
So if you normally look in the mirror and say something disparaging to yourself, implement a new intention. You might need to look and say, that’s a little different. I see you changing. You are smaller. You need to believe what you are saying.
As you train your thoughts you will get to “You look nice”
“I look friggin fantastic”
Plan for the hard parts
Prepare for the resistance. Think ahead of ways around it and plan for it. It will come up - maybe for a while. Plan to perform in spite of it. A few of my favorite ways to circumvent obstacles/ resistance are:
Systems/routines: Dialing into the day to day actions vs the end result. The result is coming only with the right actions. So concentrate on action - not outcome. I am speaking directly to changing your body, but this also works for building a business, exercising andmore.
Repetition is the key - not length of time…I mentioned this with regards to self discipline too. Everytime you keep the promise to you, you stay committed to yourself. You are growing leaps and bounds on the inside. You literally create new neurons that wire and fire together.
Do You Have The Guts?
Do you have the guts to commit 100% to yourself. Have you had a phobia around committing to you or is it simply a lost notion when you think about your goals and desires.
When you do commit to yourself 100%, you enjoy life more because you’ve removed the feeling of shame and failure by doing what you said you’d do – for you. This isn’t selfish. It allows you to show up as an example for others to see discipline, success, transformation evolve. It let’s them see what’s possible.
A lot of self love is also born in 100% commitment.
Gut Health Update
Now I have to jump in here with a few recent testimonies from clients who have been seeing such wonderful results with the Plexus RESET and gut health products. We’re on a journey together in this small group and so far we’ve found renewed commitment to ourselves by being invested together, and by having the opportunity to really see food habits and notice how we feel without them.
Now we’ve all begun the gut health product to level up our gut and set the foundation for continued healing over the next two months as well. We’ve seen a collective 14lbs of weight loss after RESET, our nutritional fast and a very renewed mindset around food. Next we dig into managing or minds!
If you need a confidant or partner in your journey of well being, and you need gut health (which of course you do) check out the link in the show notes for all the information you are seeking AND ways to get started and connect with me.
This one thing, commitment, is the difference between where you are now and where you want to be. Do you have the guts to commit?
Until next time, stay curious and keep at least one promise a day to yourself.
