When it's time to recommit

The marketing geniuses at the friendly neighborhood yoga studio that I used to attend often marked February with something they called The Re-Resolution Sale. It was a discounted 20-session pass, sold with the message that if you’ve fallen off the yoga wagon – or want to reward yourself for staying on it – you could act fast and save a few bucks.

It was genius because it was less about the money than about rewarding yourself for recommitting to what matters. And rewarding yourself for the work of honoring your plans.

Both are worth doing. Both have tangible benefits. Both can fuel transformation and meaningful change, the kind where we aren’t pushing or motivating ourself into changes, but embodying them more organically.

What are you committed to?

For a long time, I had this phrase stuck to one bulletin board in my kitchen, and to another in my office. I’ve since replaced the kitchen one, but for me, the visual reminder helped me to ask the question.

Often, I find that it’s a question that can stop a person dead in her tracks as she sails through yet another busy week filled with doing. Commitment comes in many forms. It’s the promises we make to others, the responsibilities we take on, the things we put on our to-do list, the places we’ve agreed to be, the tasks we’ve agreed to do. But what else? It’s what we say we value.

Ideally, it’s also about what we really, really want. It’s those promises we quietly make to ourselves. And if we were serious about our intentions and goals for this year and the next, well, then it’s those, too.

We can find our commitments in our past results, in the stories that play on repeat in our brain (or subconscious), in what we’re choosing moment to moment, in how we feel and what action we take and choose not to take.

It can be confronting to hear this — I’ve wrestled with it many times over the years — but it’s impossible to be committed to everything. To close the gap between where we are and what we’re intending to create, we need to be more honest with ourselves than that, and take measure of our visions alongside the present situations of our lives, our values and priorities at this time. (In my world, this is what true “balance” is all about: knowing and committing to your priorities, repeatedly.)

Around this time of year, when plans and goals are being fully set in motion, we’re usually finding it’s easier or not as easy as we thought to carry them forward and take the practical steps. That’s why it’s so important to check in with ourselves and let go of the noise and the overcommitting so that we can both recommit and reward ourselves and truly move in the direction we’re going, more smoothly and without the mind drama.

What do your actions say about where your commitments lie?

Are you really committed to working out more? To making an impact at work? To growing your business? Making more time for play? To prioritizing family relationships? To contributing in your community? To making a big, transformational change in your life, career or lifestyle?

If so, how is your schedule reflecting that? How is what you are choosing backing you up and creating conditions for success? How is your mindset contributing or holding you back?

Many of our endless goals, ideas and grand plans really do matter. Deeply. These are the ones with long-lasting benefits. The ones that clearly connect to our vision of how we want to live and work and to the life and career we most want to create now and create next. These are, not surprisingly, also the commitments that most naturally connect to our values.

That doesn’t always correlate to where our focus goes. Sometimes we need to gently corral it back where it can be most productive, where it can work with us and help us to have more of an impact with less stress. We recommit. Sometimes we need to remember to acknowledge the momentum we have and reward ourselves for the wins we’ve logged by really showing up.

When you pay attention, kindly and without judgment, you can honestly evaluate how your commitments look now and how you want them to look.

Maybe there are adjustments that need to be made so that you can take honest, more easeful action going into the year (this is true for me right now). Maybe there's an area that is calling for a recommitment, like the client I worked through that with today (which spurred me to write this post).

Or maybe it’s time for a reward or two? An investment that reflects the momentum you’re in and want to continue.

Your choice.