Commitment. The Chicken is Involved. The Pig is Committed.

July 9, 2021 by Andrew Small No Comments

So where have I been?That could be a very valid question.

To be honest life has been a little crazy.

Recently I just came out of hospital. Never been to hospital for an illness before in my life and don’t see why I had to start now.

But here I am … and now I’m out and willing to share with you my thoughts and my reflections.

Hopefully we will all learn something new.

So firstly what was the reason why I was in there? Well nothing too life threatening.

Just a severe case of tonsillitis, which could have potentially blocked my airway.

Not to mention the fact that I couldn’t put anything into my mouth, it was excruciating to swallow anything and I was getting very dehydrated.

So 3 days later and more fluid and drugs pumped through me than a local pharmacy, I’m alive, kicking and feeling better than ever.

ok well not better than ever.

But hey I’m getting there. Well enough to write a decent post for you guys that’s for sure.

So what did I learn while I was in there?

Well two things.

One about commitment. And the other about self care.

The second is pretty obvious isn’t it?

But the first one, that one was thrown out of left field a little huh?

Well you all know that I love throwing you off balance? hehe

So what you may not know is that I was feeling pretty crook about 3 weeks ago, for the same thing with my throat.

I got over it and then spent a week, not practicing self care, filled with eating at random times, too much stress, too much going out and not enough sleep.

There were a couple of stressful assignments, walks in the drizzling rain and seminars squeezed in there which all required a lot of mental and physical exertion.

This one seminar I did go was absolutely life-changing though. I would pretty much come home every night for 3 nights in a room and tweet all the random and wonderful epiphanies I was having.

I can’t tell you all the random and wonderful things that we did while we were there one the last night we had a Q and A section where 10 people from the audience got to ask any question they wanted.

So naturally. I had a question.

Ready for it?

How do you commit to something?

So I asked this question and the crowd laughed. I was like … is the answer more obvious than I think it is?

So I added to it and asked, well how do you re-enforce that commitment?

So there was my question, sitting up there on the board staring at me.

What I didn’t know at the time, was that for every question that was asked you had a mini – intervention, where you had to answer more questions about your question.

So as I was waiting for the speaker to get to my question, I was starting to get a little anxious.

Anxious that he was going to get me to commit something that I didn’t want to or say stuff that I didn’t exactly want to share in front of 150 people.

And then ….

It was my turn.

I got the microphone (which was an easy thing for me now)

And this was our conversation

Him: Jennifer, in order to re-enforce commitment, you first have to commit to something.

Me: Well what do you mean?

Him: Name one area that you would like to commit to.

Me: I don’t want to commit to anything

Him: Yes I know.

And by this time I’m thinking. Dammit commitment. I can’t even commit to those 24 month phone contracts. Seriously they like ask you for money every month and there are exit fees if you want to exit early. Its like jail.

Him: See the reason why you haven’t committed to anything, is because there hasn’t been anything that you have ever really wanted.

Me: hmmmmmmm (shite)

Him: If you don’t want to commit to something for yourself, then why not do something for your family?

What is something that you really wanted to do?

blah blah back and forth and we decided that I would commit to take my entire family over to Japan next year on a ski trip by Jan 2010.

But see that conversation was so much more than just that.

I walked out of there, thinking, what in my life have a I truly ever committed to?

And what would my life look like if I gave something 1000%.

I mean we all talk a big game, but how many of us actually live that?

It was a huge wake up call for me. A real big smack on the face.

Then like 4 days later, I was smack sick as anything in hospital, which gave me a lot of time to think.

Before that though, when I got home, I got out my journal and started writing out a list of things that I would 1000% commit to.

No excuses. No turning back.

I wrote out a list of commitments that I would eventually integrate into my daily life.

And you know which one was the biggest one for me?

Its about boys, so your going to love it.

Ok here it is .. don’t laugh. Or do. Whatever.

“To date only men that are emotionally available who have the potential to become a long term boyfriend”.

Now it seems simple right?

I mean what is so hard about writing that commitment.

Well its a lot harder, when you didn’t even know that you were a commitment phobe or that you were going after or attracting emotionally unavailable men.

But I committed to that.

That’s one of my main commitments. And so far I have lived up to that.

As part of the commitment formula its also important to re-enforce that with immediate action.

So right then and there I like write down a list of people that I needed to cut out of my life, because they just weren’t what I was looking for.

And I did it. I cut them out of my life. That night.

And can I tell you, it was one of the best most liberating feelings in the world.

See I used to think that committing to something, would create a whole new world of fears.

I always thought, hey if you commit to something, there are things that you will be required to do that you don’t want to do.

Therefore if you commit to something, you expose yourself to more fearful situations.

But here is the thing.

When you just commit, burn your bridges …. you shed all doubt within you mind.

Because there is only one option now. Forward.