00:00 

Well, hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 186, "Are You Committed or Just Interested?" Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Alright, hello there, my friends. Welcome to the podcast this week. So glad to have you. Hey, have you left me a review? Okay, if you listen to me on a fairly regular basis and you are enjoying this, this is helping you, one of the best ways you can help other people is to write a review and it's not super hard if you use iTunes. It's pretty easy. I know there are some other formats that allow you to leave reviews but iTunes is the biggest one. You can get on and just leave me a review and tell everybody what you love about the podcast, and what that does is it really helps other people to find it because the more reviews I get, the more it moves it up so that other people who type in keywords, it shows up higher up on their list and that's a great way to share information. I think it's a great way to help other people and without having to reach outside of our comfort zone too much. So if you haven't left me a review, would love it if you would. I would really, really appreciate you taking a few minutes to do that for me. 

01:22 

Alright, today we are talking about are you committed or just interested? And I started thinking about this because it is the third week of January and it's about that time that if you are a beginning of year goal setter, set goals January 1st, I'm on it, you may be starting to struggle with some of them if not all of them by now. I know that that's how it usually has been for me when I set a goal. I start off really strong for a while and then I start to taper off very often, not always, but that's going to depend on whether I'm interested or committed. We're gonna talk about that. 

02:01 

So here's how the cycle runs for many of us. We feel we're all motivated at the beginning of the year. We set some great goals, things that honestly we really would like to do, that we know are going to help us live more the kind of life that we really want to live. They may be eating or weight goals, maybe some exercise goals or some study goals. I know that I would often put some organizational goals down and then come January 1, I dig in. I was all in, I was doing them. Day two was amazing. Day three was amazing. Day four was, usually all of week one, pretty darn amazing. And I'd get through that first week and I'd go "freak. Look how awesome I am. Like, I've been doing this all week." Week two. I would slack one day, maybe two days, but I'd still be doing a pretty good job. Week three. Then I'd start slacking like three days, maybe four, I don't know, and then I would start kind of talking to myself in my head and we call that "brain chatter," right? I would start talking to myself about "oh gosh. I really should do it." And then I'm also making justifications week four. I would actually generally do more slacking than going. So then I still kind of am on my case a little bit for not being strong enough, not having enough willpower, etc. You know that brain chatter that's just like "oh come on, you should have this week five or six." 

03:28 

I would have ended up somewhat unconsciously setting my goals aside with some guilt. But also a lot of justification of why I wasn't accomplishing what I had set out to do, and by the end of February I had completely forgotten that I had set these goals to begin with, and my goal paper that I had taped on the wall is now just like a piece of the wallpaper that I don't even notice anymore. 

03:53 

Okay, anyone else? You can raise your hand if you're in your car, your bathroom, wherever, raise your hand if you relate to this. Okay, I know this because that's the story that I've lived and I think that I am not abnormal in this. So what I've come to realize about so many of the goals that I have set over the years, whether they were at New Year's or not, is that when I didn't accomplish them, it was because I was more interested in them than I was committed to them. So "interested" means that they intrigued me and I might even get pretty excited about them. I'm thinking about what it would be like to be in the space of having done the goal and I like what I see. I think about how great my life will be when I get there. But I'm often not fully connected with the price needed to accomplish the goal with my "why" behind my goal. When I know my "why," that  helps me be more committed. When I'm not into my "why," then I'm oftentimes just really interested. Interested says "I'd love to have this" and kind of leaves it at that. Interest only exists in our daydreams, but committed is a different space. Committed says, "I would love to have this and I want it so bad I will figure out a way. My 'why' is strong enough." We will make time for it regardless of what else is going on. Interested says, "exercising sounds like it would be great to have a stronger and healthier body and lose some weight." Committed says, "I will do whatever it takes to find the time to exercise." 

05:32 

Here's a scenario: if the doctor said that you were going to die in three months if you didn't start exercising three times a week, guess what? You would find the time. Interests come and go. Committed is here to stay. So here is the space of self honesty that is so vital for us. Maybe with one of these goals, you don't really want to be committed. I know, so I've mentioned here on the podcast before that I'm an early morning exerciser and I've exercised at 5am for a lot of years. And oftentimes we will tell people that we exercise at five because we're always willing to have other people come and join us. And often people will say, "oh, that sounds so great. That would be wonderful." And they come for a week, maybe two, maybe three, and then they stop coming. They were more interested in the idea of exercising at five. There's a lot of benefits, right? I get up early, I get my exercise taken care of. I'm done by six, I'm cleaned up and ready to go by seven. I have my whole day. I don't have to get sweaty in the middle of the day. There are so many reasons that it intrigues people to exercise at 5am. 

06:55 

But commitment means changing a lot of things, not just changing the time on your alarm. Commitment means changing evening routines. I've got to start serving dinner. We've got to have dinner with the kids or dinner with my spouse or dinner by myself. An hour earlier, I've got to stop watching these shows. I have to be getting to bed an hour or two earlier because I've still got to get my sleep, right? That's always important. So commitment means changing evening routines. It means cutting some things out that we have done. So if we put committed into the feeling line of the thought model, remember we have circumstances and then we have thoughts, feelings, actions. Okay? 

07:36 

So if we go into the feeling line and we put "committed," what thought creates "committed"? Here's some ideas: "I'm going to do it no matter what." "I'm going to figure this out." "I won't quit until I've accomplished it." So let me give you an example of what that looks like in real life. real life. So let's say that you've told your son that you will pick up your seven year-old granddaughter from school every Tuesday and Thursday. When 2:30 on a Tuesday rolls around we don't start wondering if we're gonna make it to the school on time. We don't think "maybe I'll watch a movie instead" or "maybe I'll lay down and take a nap at that time." Picking up your granddaughter is non-negotiable. Your responsibility for picking her up comes first and everything else gets in line. That is what commitment is. It's going to happen no matter what. 

08:36 

So here's the thing. Sometimes we are actually just interested and guess what, that's okay. It may be a great goal. It may be something that would really be good for our lives, but we're really just interested. No worries. This is where we just don't want to stress ourselves out. We don't if we're only interested, it's not going to last. So no, no sense beating ourselves up. If we put interested in the feeling line, then our thought line would be things like, "wouldn't it be great if..." "I would love it if..." "I would feel really amazing if..." So do you see the lack of commitment in these thoughts? The thing is, those things would be really amazing and great. But if we don't want them enough to fully commit to what it takes to get them, then we're actually just interested. And guess what? Interested is okay. We actually cannot be fully committed to every great and amazing idea for a goal that we have. And sometimes we might be interested in something for a very long time and then later we become committed. I think middle-age provides that for a lot of us. A lot of us are interested in something for a lot of years and then the kids all leave and we go, bam, it's my time, and we commit and that's great. Other times we might be committed to something for a very long time and then later we just become interested. We lose interest in being committed and guess what? That's great too. We don't have to think that we've been doing it all wrong when our interests and our commitments change. That is the nature of living and of being a human. We change, we grow, we become different people with different focuses, especially as our lives change. 

10:30 

I remember when I got my first Life Coaching certification, it was through the John Maxwell team. And John Maxwell is a leadership guru and he is brilliant. Such a good, good man. I really have so much respect for him and I remember sitting in  one of my certification classes. We had a three day conference to go to and he was teaching the class and somebody asked him the question, "how do you find balance? As our lives get busier doing coaching and helping people, how do you find balance?" And I love that John Maxwell replied, he says, "I don't think you ever find balance. What we do is we learn to accept the idea that our lives are seasonal and that different seasons of our lives require different focuses." And my friends, middle-age is a different season, a brand new season for many of us. And so we're trying to figure out the new rules. We're trying to figure out what we're only interested in anymore, and what we're committed to. 

11:36 

When my kids played high school soccer, I was committed to going to the soccer games. When my last daughter graduated, my last daughter that played soccer graduated, I was no longer committed to going to something that I wanted to commit to. So many of these things are going to shift in our middle-age. Right? We hit this midlife thing, lots of things shift. Maybe we don't really want to be committed and we're actually just interested in things. Right? Often we have all of this brain chatter going on telling us that we should be committed. We get on our case for not really wanting to be healthier or more organized or educated. We can have a tendency to get on our case and beat ourselves up over our interest when we think we should be committed instead. And very often when we have these "shoulds," it's because we are pulling in expectations from oftentimes other people or societal ideas of what we should be doing at this age. And that's why we struggle so much and we get on our case because we are really just interested. But society or friends or family tells us that we should be doing it a certain way. And so then we get on our case about it. 

13:01 

But this is where it is so important to be honest with ourselves. Don't say we want to be committed when we really don't want to be committed. Because it's okay to just be interested in some things. We can only be interested in some really great things. We can be interested and just do them occasionally without having to go all in. One way to really figure out if you're committed or interested is to look at your reasons. And one thing that I found is that when my reasons align with my values, I will side more with being committed. When they don't align with my values, I will side more with being just interested. For example, let's say that you set a goal to lose weight. What is your reason for that goal? Check and see if that reason aligns with your values. Being committed will be a lot easier if it does align. If you really value your physical appearance and you want to wear a smaller size of clothing, then being committed will be easier because being a smaller size would align with the value of physical looks. If you really value being able to engage in physical activities and you think that weighing less will help you be more physical, then being committed will be easier because it's a match. If you love to watch movies every day and are not too active or outdoorsy then if your reason is to be more physical then it's going to be much easier on you to be interested. 

14:40 

It's going to be hard to be committed if there's not an alignment there. So interested is going to be what it is, and maybe we do get outside once in a while and maybe we do go for a walk once in a while or we you know do some yoga or something. It's okay. We don't have to be all in on everything that we do. There's a lot of things in our lives that we really just need to put in the "interested" category and let go of the guilt and be okay with it. But let's just be really clear and honest with ourselves if whether we're interested or whether we're committed. 

15:21 

Okay, but here's the thing. Sometimes even when we are really committed and our goals are aligned with our values, sometimes we still struggle. Right? Sometimes it's really hard to still do what we want to do. I get that. I do that. I think all of us do that all the time. We have things that we want to do and we really are pretty committed, but we're still just struggling. So I'm going to give you some ideas that can help. One: two phrases to look out for that are going to sabotage your progress. The phrase, "I don't have time" and the phrase, "I don't know." Both of these are lies and we lie to ourselves all of the time when we use these phrases. I promise you, you will always have time for what you are truly committed to. Always. You will always find a way. Okay, let me give you a quick example. When I'm not dating someone, I always just think, "I don't know where I would find the time to do this." And then when I start dating someone, I magically have two hours a night to chat on the phone or to spend time together or to go out and do things. Kind of amazing how that works, right? I always find the time for things that I am truly committed to and I promise you that you do too. You will always find a way. 

16:50 

And the other phrase, "I don't know." Here we go, my friends, not helpful. And I promise you that you do know, that you will always know the answer. I was working with a client today on an issue and and she just says "I just don't even know what to do. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to approach it. I don't know how to handle this." She's like "what would you do? Give me some advice." I'm like "I'm not giving you advice." I probably wasn't that straightforward but I was like "well, let's just ask yourself 'what if you did know the answer?'" and she's like "well, but I don't know that," I'm like "oh, what if you did know? What do you think? Go! Let your brain start brainstorming and thinking," and it was amazing to me that she came up with a really great, insightful answer. We always know the answer but when we tell ourselves that we don't know, our primitive brain shuts down to brainstorming unconsciously, like in the background. 

17:51 

Our primitive brain is always working on things. That's why sometimes we'll be doing something and this brilliant idea from three days ago from a project or a problem we were working on, all of a sudden this idea pops into our brain because our primitive brain is always unconsciously trying to solve problems. So if I tell myself "I don't know," my primitive brain just says "oh well, we don't know, so we don't have to work on that." But when we tell ourselves that we'll figure it out, we turn our primitive brain on to brainstorming unconsciously. "I'll figure it out" and our brain says "oh I guess I better get to work figuring it out then" and it does. It's kind of an amazing thing. 

18:30 

Okay, number two: if you feel as though you really are stuck, make a move now. It does not have to be a huge step. Just a small step in any direction and the answer will reveal itself before too long. You just have to pick up the phone and make the call. Put on your exercise shoes. Clean out one small drawer. One baby step at a time. We will get there, but we have to start by committing to something simple and doable So if you decide that you're gonna go for a walk every afternoon at four o 'clock and you get home from work at 3:30, make it easy. Start by committing to something simple and doable when you come home. Immediately change into the clothes you're gonna go walking in and put your walking shoes on. Do one small thing, like commit to something simple and doable, and that makes such a big deal. We just have to make the first move, right? Oftentimes when I'm working on something, when I'm struggling to do a business thing or do an ad or something, I will just tell myself "Okay, I will commit to ten minutes. I'm just gonna sit down for ten minutes and I'm gonna do it." And when I feel like I'm stuck, and I just make that small move in one direction, before I know it that ten minutes has turned into 20 or 30 or 40 or an hour, right? And that's when we get into that space of being committed. That's just what happens, right? It just comes and then we don't want to stop. 

20:10 

So next one, don't wait for motivation, because it will rarely come. Motivation, come on. It's not some magical fantasy thing out there that's just going to come and sit by our desk or sit wherever we are and talk to us. Motivation does not work that way. Motivation rarely comes on its own. Our brains really struggle to create motivation from a standing position. So in the morning, a standing position, meaning we're not moving, right? So this kind of goes along with the previous one a little bit. In the morning, I noticed that if I'm laying in bed, my body desperately wants to keep laying there. It's just like, "oh, but this just feels so good. Oh, but five minutes isn't going to make a difference," right? And my body just feels like it almost can't move sometimes. But once I get up and get moving, then my body feels good moving. And then I'm motivated to keep moving. When we get moving, then the motivation shows up. 

21:17 

Sometimes I'll be honest, I don't feel very motivated to write a podcast. You know, the motivation guru has not come and sat by my desk and told me what to write. And my brain knows that it's going to take time and it's going to take effort. And I'm going to have to engage mentally and emotionally. And so when I wait for the motivation, I will find myself spending an hour 

dawdling around the house doing all kinds of other things or answering emails or checking Facebook or blah, blah, blah, right? But once I sit down and get started, again, I'll just say, "okay, just just get started for 10 minutes, just write the first part." So once I sit down and get started, then I don't want to quit until I'm done. I just kind of want to keep going. 

22:06 

So where in your life have you noticed this? Maybe once you start doing the laundry or folding a load of laundry, you're like, "no, I'm just going to get this done." Or if you're cleaning a room, you just are cleaning out a drawer, you're just like, "no, I'm going to finish this job, right?" And somebody comes in and says, "Hey, can you do this? Or will you do this?" And we're like, "Nope, I'm in the middle of a project, I got to get it done." Or a project at work. Right? We may put it off, put it off, put it off. But once we get started, bam, then the motivation comes in. Start first, and then the motivation kicks in. We will rarely feel motivated before we start. Occasionally, absolutely. But mostly, nope, nope, motivation is a byproduct of getting moving. 

22:52 

Alright, man, the last one I'm going to share with you number four. Realize that "all or nothing" mentality stops our progress. It is so easy to think that if I miss one day of exercise that I have ruined the whole thing and then I just want to quit. No, I missed a day. That's just one thing. I just get to pick it back up tomorrow. All or nothing thinking is rarely helpful when we're working to accomplish a goal. So give yourself grace to be a human and to make mistakes. One way that I have found that is helpful to do this is to have what we call ceiling and floor commitments. Okay, ceilings are the best that I show up and floors are the minimum amount that I show up. Okay, so maybe I decide that I want to do yoga every day. My best would be a 45 minute yoga practice. My bare minimum that I will allow myself is of 10 minutes stretch or a five minute stretch or a five minute, what do they call it when you sit and think meditation, right? So maybe we have a ceiling, which is on the best days. This is how I show up and on my days where I'm struggling, this is the bare minimum that I do. Ceiling and floors, brilliant idea, right? 

24:16 

Okay. That, my friends, is what growing up is all about. It's about moving into the space where we can be honest with ourselves about things like, "am I committed to this or am I just interested" in being able to be compassionate to ourselves when we're just interested in something that we think it would be actually pretty cool to be committed to? And it's okay, and we can always change it. We can always change it, but let's give ourselves grace for things that we're just interested in and let go of the reasons that don't service. Our reasons would be a really good, honest, "why." Not because the neighbors are doing it. Not because everybody else is doing it. Not because you're getting pressure from your kids or your mom or whoever commitment has to come from inside. We have to love our reason. Why? 

25:15 

Okay. That's it for today. If you want to chat with me about coaching, okay, I am getting rid of a class period at school, so I'm going to have a little bit more time to add to my coaching schedule. So if you have been thinking that maybe coaching would be a really good option, you want to decide whether you are interested in coaching or whether you're committed to coaching, this would be a really great opportunity. You can go to tanyahale.com. You can book a free 30 minute consult and we can talk about it. And I can help you decide whether you are just interested in coaching or whether you whether you're committed to it. Okay. And I love those free consults. I think they're so fun to talk with people and to help people gain more clarity on what they want and what price they're willing to pay to get it. And not just monetary price, but also, you know, the time commitment and energy commitment. Okay. So again, if you haven't shared this podcast with your friend lately, please share it. And if you have not left me a review, you can do that as well. Okay, my friends, that's going to do it. Have an awesome, awesome week and I will see you next time. Bye. 

26:31 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!