Commit to Recommit
One of my commitments to myself this year was getting to the gym to lift weights 3 times a week. My husband and I established a routine of going first thing in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and it was working. Despite my initial resistance, a neck injury and travel, I stayed pretty consistent, feeling good and strong.
And then they changed the schedule at our recreation center, closing on Mondays due to budget cuts, requiring us to change our schedule too. I thought, maybe I could just go 2 days a week instead of 3, or needed to take a break altogether. What I really needed was to recommit.
Any habit, behavior, or practice you want to build and sustain requires you to commit to recommit daily, and sometimes many times a day. As humans, we are all resistant to do things when we decide they are inconvenient, unimportant or just too much trouble, with weather, competing priorities or schedule changes.
Commit to Recommit has two steps:
- Commit to do something and you decide it is most important. Everything you do is important and only you can determine what is most important.
- Recommit to do something and you actually do it. You recommit when you really don’t want to, with all of your excuses and rationalizations readily available and do it anyway.
What is one thing you need to recommit to, which really means what do you need to recommit to yourself? This is a critical practice of Self-Leadership because it to helps you make the best decisions to feel good. And it works! When I recommitted to going to the gym on Tuesday, Thursdays, and Saturdays, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, and I feel good about myself for doing it. You will too.