Day 93: Making Commitments

I flipped through this relationship book in the library several months ago. It talked about the trouble with commitment of the 'I promise to love you through absolutely everything that happens until I am dead' variety.

I have trouble with that one, too.

This book advocated making 'process commitments' as opposed to 'outcome commitments.' So rather than making sweeping promises you may or may not be able to keep (or control), you'd commit to things you can control, like telling the truth or keeping your agreements.

This kind of commitment I can handle.

Although this obviously applies to relationships, I'm not thinking about those right now. I'm thinking about writing.

I've been so obsessed with outcome that my process has not been very fun lately. I've lost steam and feel behind and the whole thing seems really daunting. Which makes it hard to get anything done. So here, today, on the Internet, I shall make some new commitments.

I'm going to commit to a 30-day trial of these new behaviours as a bit of a science experiment. At the end of 30 days, I'll evaluate what worked and what sucked. This 30-day trial idea is inspired by Steve Pavlina, a dude who uses himself as a guinea pig almost constantly. (Do your best to ignore the fact that his eyes are WAY too close together, giving him a seriously creepy countenance.)

So...my commitments.

I commit to writing new material for my book every day for 30 days. I'm not going to get fussy about word count because it makes me seriously crazy. In fact, I may decide not to look at word count at all. We'll see. This commitment is mostly about the fact that chipping away at something is the key to getting it done (and hopefully not getting intimidated, daunted and paralyzed).

I re-commit to using the confidence-boosting behaviours that work for me. These are behaviours that I've used in the past that have really helped, but for one reason or another, I've dropped. Some, I commit to using daily: gratitude lists, guided meditation podcasts, Morning Pages, prayer/meditation before bed. Others are one-offs or as-neededs: little pep-talk Post-It notes all over the place, watching inspirational movies, having bubble baths. This commitment is about setting myself up for success by developing a positive, clear mindset. It's also a commitment to re-setting my mind when fear and self-doubt threaten rather than getting sucked in.

I commit to my health by eating really well, getting enough sleep and exercising regularly. Again, cultivating that joyful body-mind vibe and setting myself up for success.

As you can see, these commitments are not exactly earth-shattering. They are mostly recycled, actually. Some are things that really worked for me in other contexts, like Ironman training for example, and others, like writing a little every day, are things I've been trying to do, but have been vague about and have therefore allowed myself to get distracted.

Basically, I am committing to my creativity 100% for 30 days. I know what I need to do to succeed, I'm just making the commitment to doing it. I'm committing to staying on track and not letting fear, self-doubt and self-destructive behaviours throw me off. I know December is notoriously a gong show of Christmas season time-suckage, but what am I going to do, wait until January? I don't think so. Game. On.