WHEN I FAIL ON A COMMITMENT
IT IS TIME TO RECONNOITER AND FIGURE OUT WHAT WILL WORK!
WHEN I FAIL ON A COMMITMENT, I MUST RECONNOITER
I've put this onto this separate, as an example that I will probably link into from some other pieces.
Basically, this is a process of redeciding
1. What the costs are and seeing if they can be reduced
2. What the benefits are and seeing if they can be enhanced or made clearer, and then
3. Being specific on how to implement them.
Then one must weigh the benefits in total versus the costs in total and seeing which one wins, as in The Ben Franklin T form. Then you decide and make the commitment, strongly and definitely with full intention.
You must know this process, unless you've already reached full perfection:
NOT AN INDICTMENT, BUT A SIGN
If I make a commitment and then fail to follow through, it is not an indictment of me, as I truly meant my commitment - I only failed to implement all that was necessary.
I traded off another activity or being in comfort for that which committed to that I thought had enough value to be worth the effort.
So, "going down in defeat" is not an accurate description of what happened. I just didn't win.
I assessed, either through thinking purposely or by default thinking, that the other activity or comfort had more value to me than the perceived value at the time of the decision not to follow through.
Simple.
SO THIS IS THE PROCESS TO RECONNOITER
So...
I simply look at both sides (the cost and the benefit) and do what is necessary.
An example situation
My choice to sit in comfort and to not do my morning stretching and exercise simply needs to be revisited.
I see that I get really bored doing exercises, which is why I read when I am on the treadmill. So, since "being bored" is a "cost" (in my mind), I could reduce that element of the total cost by watching the early morning news, keeping the remote handy.
Also, my decision was not firm enough. But to be firm enough, I must be very, very, very clear about the benefits - and then declare my commitment strongly.
Perhaps I didn't think this out enough.
The value could be less than I thought and/or I didn't have perspective, so I couldn't see the value as large enough (in the distance) to offset the value of "comfort" right now and seeming very large (just as a tree in the foreground appears to be much larger than the same size tree in the distance).
Looking at tweaking the cost side, perhaps i might postulate that only the first 5 minutes is more valuable per minute than the next 10 minutes. That means that I could cut it off at 5 minutes - and have less conflict (cost) but a clearer idea of the value being high enough per minute.
Right now, I am inclined to modify it to 5 minutes to make the transition to it easier and more probable, as small steps are easier than big ones
But I'm still left with deciding if this exercising/stretching has enough benefits.
So, I just did the routine, as noted below, and I note that I feel refreshed in all of muscles, with any stiffness gone, and I feel more energy and more alert. And that will allow me to be more productive and to get more out of the day in general. So, it is clearly worth the 5 minutes. (I'll revisit this later, but, for now, I think my original idea of doing 15 minutes might have been not worth it in terms of benefits. (I reflected this in a Franklin T at the end of this piece.)
A SPECIFIC COMMITTED TIME
Also, in order to have a definite path and increase the likelihood of this being done, I need to insert it into a particular place in the order of things.
[In several studies involving students and others, the control group that specified how and when they were going to do the future assignment had a huge completion rate (like 78% in one study) compared to the group that simply promised but wasn't specific as to when or how (like a 17% success rate).]
So, I decided that my "comfort" need was rather high first thing in the morning, so I would make my coffee first and sit and drink it, but that still didn't seem like "enough. So I decided next to read my daily statements from my Reminders Book, affirming how I will be that day and what I am grateful for. Then I would flip on the TV and do my 5 minutes.
And, yes, it was easier to do after I specified in which order I would do the stretches/exercise!
So, right after I wrote this, I did the routine watching early morning TV (recorded) and went past the 5 minutes as it was pretty easy and enjoyable (interesting stuff on TV).
TRY, TRY, TRY AGAIN
In studying the area of willpower, habits, discipline self-control (see directory to the section Contents/Links), after a number of failures on revamping certain habits and my having to try again and again before succeeding, I discovered the statistics on people quitting various addictions. Basically, the odds of success in losing weight and/or quitting smoking were higher for those who had previously tried and failed more times than the others.
So, I decided that each "run" at trying to get a new behavior was worth more in terms of probable success that the previous ones - and if the benefits seemed worth it before, each new time seemed then to, again, be worth it - but more likely to succeed!
