Commitment And Why It Matters
In the context of our work together, let’s look at completions on several different levels:
- Unconscious stuff that still influences our actions
- Things we strive for but procrastinate
- Things we’ve done to others that we need to clean up
- Agreements we have made with ourselves and others
Unconscious Stuff That Still Influences Our Actions
I have found in the 20 years I’ve been doing trauma work on myself and others that our unconscious is often running the show outside of our awareness. Early life memories that were difficult, often have a grip on us and influence us out of our awareness. This is why it’s so important to write down what success looks like for any aspect of life you are trying to gain momentum in. If you don’t write down what success looks like it will be far more difficult to “see” what you are doing to get the results you are getting.
Humans have a natural propensity to be in denial about most things when it comes to changing who we “think” we are. This denial causes us to miss the obvious. You can test this by thinking about a friend who you know has some challenges. When you offer advice do they defend or are they in complete agreement with you? Rarely, are people ready to accept responsibility for an outcome they are currently getting especially if it’s negative.
There are many ways to notice and address unconscious dysfunctional beliefs and patterns but for our purpose we will use the visioning tool are our primary way to “see” what needs to be addressed to get a new result.
Things We Strive For But Procrastinate
Another clue as to what might be motivating us unconsciously is to look at the things we procrastinate about. You see, the goal is to get your unconscious mind to aligned with your conscious intentions. Once that happens you’ll get better results with far less pain.
For now, write down the things you procrastinate about and bring those to the coaching sessions when you feel it’s time to work on them.
Things We’ve Done To Others That We Need To Clean Up
We live in a complicated world and no one is perfect. Decide how you want to live your life right now. Yes, I mean it. How do you want to be treated? How do you want to treat others? There are various things to pay attention to as it applies to completions with others. Here is a list:
- Agreements we’ve made with them.
- Hurtful things we’ve said or done in the heat of complexity
- Things we may not even be aware of
Making things right with people free’s up a lot of energy. Energy that can be used for your creative projects. When you clean up incompletions with people it gets you off the “hook”. The ego hates apologizing. When you commit vocally with a person to a new behavior the ego will remind you next time you are about to mess up because it hates apologizing. Use it to your advantage.
Let’s say you have an agreement with someone and it’s not working out. If you wanted to be “complete” with them, you would go to them and change the agreement. Don’t suffer through an agreement that is not working or wait until they say something. They may be upset that you are changing things, but it’s the truth and you’ll need to suffer the consequences of your choice. This can be a good thing. Two things will happen next time. First, you will be more sensitive on the agreements you make and two, that person will be more cautious on whether they can trust you’ll keep your agreements with them. Everyone wins. Over time, you will get far better at choosing your agreements…moving you towards conscious alignment.
It’s a GREAT practice to sit down monthly and make a list of any incompletions you have in your life and do whatever it takes to clean them up. After you do that just notice how your energy changes. This includes realizing you might have to just commit to not doing some things you thought you would need to do. Oftentimes, I will look at my to do list and just agree to take things off the list so I can focus on other more important things.
Agreements We Have Made With Self And Others
Agreements are at the root of trust. When people don’t trust you, you’ll have a more difficult time in life. Think of trust as being at the foundation of momentum. When you are feeling stuck look for any glitches in your integrity. Agreements, being one of the pillars to integrity, is a great place to reflect.
In my observations people often make agreements without even realizing it. For example, let's say you are trying to lose weight. Maybe you know that your mom, wife, husband, or girlfriend/boyfriend is a great chef and loves to cook for you but you avoid telling them that you are on a diet. You come home and here is this amazing 2400 calorie meal waiting for you less than 24 hours after you decided on the diet!
Do you eat or do you tell them you are on a diet? Probably eat. Like most humans you’d rather break your own agreement then to make someone upset after they put so much effort to please you. A better option before they had cooked the meal, would have been to tell the one you love what you are up to and share with them how they can help you achieve your weight loss goals. Make sense?
This is a good start. Please post your questions comments below.
