Commitment, Consistency & Persistence

Making the decision to change for the better is one that often takes a fair amount of courage. It means making a break with past patterns that were familiar and thus in a way comfortable, even when they were harmful. The transformation process also involves sustaining the new habits over time and resisting the pull of past conditioning. Here commitment, persistence and consistency come into play.

With smoking cessation, it cannot ever be emphasized strongly enough that once you quit you cannot cheat and have “just one” as that will only set you up for eventual failure. You can’t be a part-time non-smoker, you have either quit or you haven’t. In weight management, the successful individual will have to resist the siren’s call promising another effortless “quick fix” in weight loss and remember that no such beast exists, that only consistent, long-term changes in eating and exercise behaviors have been proven to provide meaningful success. The yo-yo dieter just gets fatter and less fit over time. The golfer who wants to shave 5 strokes off his score is going to have to practice more, which means time will have to be subtracted from something else (i.e.- watching TV). Commitment involves simply doing what needs to be done.

One way of avoiding commitment is the excuse that “the time isn’t just right yet.” Yet is there ever really a “right” time? Legend has it that during Rome’s colonization of Britain, Julius Caesar had his legionnaires watch as he had the ships that had carried them over there burned and sunk in the English Channel, leaving them no option for retreat and no choice but to press ahead. Now I am not suggesting that you do anything quite that drastic (especially if it involves any horseplay with matches), but there will never be a better time to show the world and your self what you are really made of than NOW.

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