On Commitment — A How To Guide.

Commitment is the prerequisite if you want to achieve anything in your life.

Most of us Dream, yearn for it for days, torture ourselves about it but never get to make it any progress around it, let alone achieve it. This is essentially due to lack of commitment.

How to be Committed — For this I would like to create a hypothesis and live through it for a month. After a month I’ll report back on my learnings if any.

What am I committing to?

I am committing to losing weight and being healthy. Sounds the most cliche of all the goals ever formed in the world. Let me explain this a little though, in life there are a few blocker stages — unless you cross that blocker stage you are unable to think about the next level. This is nothing but expansion on Maslow’s Hierarchy. This is a First Principle that I truly believe in. For example: Unless you have food or security, you will always be in survival mode. Everything else doesn’t mean anything to you. Unless you have money your mind is not free to pursue meaning in life. Similarly, unless you are healthy — everything in life takes a back seat. In words of Naval Ravikant — “A sick man only wants one thing; a healthy man wants ten thousand things.” There is a reason why “Health” top the charts of most resolutions each year. Now to cross this Blocker level — I can either accept it as it or try to overcome it. This time I am choosing to overcome it.

I am not even fat shaming here. I have no issues being fat, I have been overweight all my life and I have no qualms in owning it either. All my 20s I have been a happy fat kid who has time for her life. Now I know my body will not be able to hold up with my unhealthy lifestyle for longer, hence I believe this step is critical.

Here is a Step-by-Step Setup.

1. Motivation — Be clear about what is motivating you to take this step at this point in time. A strong motivation is the only thing which will help you see it through. So if I was okay all my life being overweight what change this time. I am 34 years old, in 5 months I’ll turn 35. My kid will turn 4 this year and I really want to plan further family. If you ask me, having two kids might be the only thing I was super sure in my life, more than even getting married or achieving something in life. Family is the most important thing for me. I would really want to see it complete. So this year I would really want to add a new member in my family. Being healthy is a major prerequisite for same. Hence, this is for R.

2. Plan for it — I can’t stress on this point enough. You have to plan for your life. You have to design it the way you want to live otherwise you will just keep flowing aimlessly without reaching any of the shores which were literally lined up for you. Guide the flow of life and be guided by it. As Loial says in Wheels of Time “Always in such a rush these humans. Never taking the time to properly prepare for what they are walking into.” Last year I have lost almost 10 Kgs. So I sort of know the drill. Planning starts with clearly stating your measurable objective and adding timelines to it. So I am closing January at 83 Kgs and I plan to reach 75 Kgs by end of Feb. So some 0.3 Kgs per day.

3. Design your Day — If you are really committed, you need to be really anal about you plan for day and your weeks. There is no other way to it. It is critical to define what is to be done and when. All of the next needs to be planned at least a day in advance. I can’t stress on this enough — Planning is everything. (reminds me to Akshay Kumar from Ajnabee roll eyes).You take the main objective, divide it into smaller chunks and assign a time for each chunk as a weekly schedule. You pre decide the content of each chuck at least a day in advance for it to be effective. Weight loss can be divided into Exercise — Walk + Exercise, Food — Fruits + Nuts + Proteins + Carbs, Water — Green Tea + Juice + Water. I have assigned timings for each activity and a time to plan for next day including availability of groceries and ownership of cook.

4. No Cheat Days — You are either committed to something or you are not. There are no cheat days. Your dream should ideally possess you, at least for the time duration you have given yourself. The euphoria of giving your whole self to make something happen is the true pursuit itself. The true goal of Human spirit (Background Music — Seven Worlds One Planet Suite by Hans Zimmer). Why would you want to do anything less than epic. Your commitment to your goal is your personal legend.

5. Take ownership — You and only you can make your goal happen. No one else can make it happen for you. You can’t depend on an external agent or make them responsible for your progress. Your coach or help can just guide you in your pursuit but the ownership of making it happen is your own. Always remember no external force can either put you to a path or derail from it unless there is your conscious or unconscious agreement to it. Your failures, just like your success are yours alone.

6. Manifest It Everyday — Manifestation sounds like a cheap self help trick. It is far more deep rooted than that. Say for example, what is it that we do when we do something as scared as pray. Praying is nothing but reminding ourselves of the values that we want to live by ( as ordain by the text, thats a different story). Manifestation is your own prayer for yourself. A reminder to protect you from distractions and align you to the goal that you have set yourself. Manifestation is a devotion to God of Self to gain their blessings in terms of their attention. I promise myself that I will make it happen again today.

7. Track It — Every single day. It doesn’t matter whether you are achieving or failing, reaching your goal slow or fast — what matters in that you are diligently tracking your progress. Taking immediate measures when you lag behind. Not meeting your goal for a days is fine, not meeting it 3 days in a row requires an honest conversation with oneself. There is no need to be strict with yourself. All you need is to hear oneself out. What is troubling you? What is causing you to not pursue the path which you desperately wanted to? Whats eating you? You have all the answers inside, all you need is a conversation with the self.

8. Power of Commitment — Once you commit to something, the universe starting conspiring to make it happen for you ( Paulo Coelho — The Alchemist). You have to take the first step and show your dedication to your case and soon you will see people aligning themselves to make things happen for you. The secret is that in this world there are very few people who Dream, even lesser you are committed enough to see it though. We are very very afraid to commit, to seek something out of our comfort zone. Hence, dreams have become an abused terms for something you yearn for but never see through. There is a pile of broken ones on every boulevard. Hence, when something is really striving for a cause, any cause, it becomes as good as striving for greatness. Everybody want a piece of greatness, when one sees someone putting in effort for their dream, they make it in part their own to at least being an enabler of greatness.

Why do we even want to pursue something less than greatness. For once let’s give all we have so that there is no life of regret. I am committing to a weight loss journey for next one month. Will be back with my story in sometime. Keep watching this space.

On Commitment by Magicthreadworks