I see you there: Mr/Miss non-committal. I know what you’re up to:
Your brand new self-help book sits unopened.
Your September cleanse outline has fallen behind the fridge.
Your goal to pack better lunches has landed you knee deep in instant noodles.
Your runners gather dust.
What happened?
Listen, don’t fret, my friends. You are not alone. We all struggle with commitment and the good news is: getting started can happen at any moment.
I know, getting started may not be the easiest thing. So here’s a few words on commitment:
We’ve all had fear of commitment.
Some have trouble with partnerships, parenthood, and friendships. For others, it’s exercise, diets, or sobriety. Perhaps it is ingrained in us as humans, perhaps we learned it from those who taught us, or from the society we live in. I can’t say we will ever know for sure. But there is one thing I’m pretty sure of when it comes to commitment: Fear is debilitating.
Think about it for a minute. Often there is nothing actually in the way of making a health commitment. We find excuses, sure, but where do those excuses come from?
We are afraid.
We are afraid it will be too hard.
We are afraid of judgment.
We are afraid of change.
We are afraid we will not be very good.
We are afraid that we will fail.
Does any of this resonate with you? I bet it does. We’ve seen it in others; we’ve seen it in ourselves.
Here’s the thing: this fear is not serving us. Fear has its place, yes. We need fear to warn us of predators and kick our adrenaline into high gear in the event of a disaster or trauma. But when it comes to fear of a commitment towards better health, fear has no benefit. Zero. Fear is simply getting in the way of our success. Sure there may be failures, setbacks, times we feel that we just can’t make it. Are these really, truly, reasons enough not to try?
No way.
So, for your Monday morning health pep talk, my lovely friends, when it comes to your healthful intentions, I ask you to take fear out of the equation for a moment and evaluate what is left. What if fear was not necessarily a flashing red light, but a yellow one, or green, even? What if, without fear as your passenger, you could have less roadblocks, obstacles, and burdens to carry? What if, without fear, there would be no reasons not to commit, because failures and set backs and judgments were just part of the journey?
You would be free to succeed.
In the name of health and wellness, love and happiness, just try to move fear over to the side for a moment and see what happens.
Open that book.
Retrieve that cleanse.
Chuck the instant noodles.
Dust off those sneaks.