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Human Potential at the Cutting Edge

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Unreasonable Commitment

You have decided to change things. You have decided to take the steps needed to charge forward. You are going to make your life noticeably better, in some significant way. Yet the sad likelihood is that you will fail. According to Steve Pavlina failure is often because you didn’t take the time to develop the necessary habits.

If Pavlina is right and I believe he is, then how do we build the habits that support our goals?

I believe it starts with Unreasonable Committment.

What is Unreasonable Committment? Unreasonable Committment is the strength to hold to a committment with teeth and toenails. It is a particular strength of committment that won’t be denied.

Is there a simple high leverage habit that would change your world? That is the kind of habit to focus on.

If you are a parent it may be as simple as making sure the kitchen is clean each evening. When you and your children are sprinting for school and work, mornings are best are hectic; at worst they deteriorate into screaming matches of “hurry up you’ll be late for school” or “you’re going to make me late for work.” Tears and hard feelings are the best you can expect from these situations, and you are often late to boot.

But, if you make an Unreasonable Committment to cleaning the kitchen before you go to sleep, each morning would start out from a do-able baseline. You would be more cool headed, and if your kids are like mine when you remove the time pressure not only are they happier BUT they move faster.

An Unreasonable Committment to a simple action can change the whole morning, and your child’s long-term memory of you.

What does Unreasonable Committment mean here? It means that you do it. You clean that silly kitchen whether you get in there at 7 or at midnight. It is simple, but it is hard.

Perhaps you have a morning workout scheduled, but your boss calls with an emergency that doesn’t go well and your workout has to be ditched. This time you took my advice and you wrote out the “backup rules” before you started your workout program. You decided that if you had to skip your morning workout that you would get it in before bed. Now, the evening is here and you get seduced by TV, or the Drudgereport, or checking email, and poof the time evaporates. It is now past midnight and your workout is still NOT done.

The Reasonable Man will talk to himself and say…its ok. At least I got the email done, or I am up to speed on the news, or gosh I am tired and tomorrow will be a big day. This Reasonable Man will talk himself out of taking the action that he needs to take. He will tuck his tail between his legs and “bail.” It is not reasonable to hit the weights, or to go out for a 3 mile run at 1 a.m.

The Unreasonable Man (or woman) will say “ah shit!” Then he will crank his lazy ass up and get it done. This is Unreasonable Committment.

At this level it is not the workout that is important. It is the promise to self. It is the character that we build by making and keeping our promises to ourselves.

The key here is Unreasonable Commitment. When you look at those dishes or the running shoes or that weight set and the hour is late; the decision is not about clean dishes or getting your workout in. The decision is about self respect. The decision is about your Character with a capital “C.”

Now, I am not looking down at anyone here. I have made the wrong choice plenty of times, just ask my poor wife. She has seen me crawl into bed, tired and grumpy from having made the wrong choice. In that moment she has seen me make the wrong choice again, the choice to stay and sleep. But, she has also seen me drag my sorry ass out of bed and out the door. She knows that if I do, even with the loss of sleep, I will be much easier to live with the next day. I will also be much more productive.

My advice is simple, ” get Unreasonable.” Who cares if it is 1:00 a.m.? Go make it happen. Looking in the mirror will be easier. Things will get done. Good habits will get made. Change, positive change, will happen.

Decide to be Unreasonable with your next self project. To decide means to cut off other options. Decide. Change one habit forward. Change one that will matter. Create habits that will build and move you forward into the person you want to be. When that decision becomes a habit, you will have changed your Character. Choose another habit. Don’t reach for too many new habits at a time. Remember the power of One. One habit. One step at a time.

(see my articles the Power of One and Time: Little Bits Add Up)

Posted in Character, Personal Development, Soul.

Tagged with athletes, Character, exercise, goal, habit, life changing habit, motivation, will power, workout.

2 comments

By Wayne Key – September 9, 2009

The Right Ratio

Adelaide Heinen Youngblood 1913 - 2009

July 20th, 2009

A beautiful and wise woman died today. She was my wife’s great Aunt, and to us she was truly great. She taught without knowing she taught. Her lessons were simple. She didn’t teach by pontificating, she taught by living with a gentle style and strength that lifted everyone who knew her. She led by example.

I will never forget my last visit with her. I had been pulled to Houston by the need to visit a friend having surgery at MD Anderson. Sadly or wonderfully, his problem drew me there, and on the way out of town my wife prevailed upon me to visit Adie.

At 96 she was still living at home with the help of her son. Frail and tottering she met me at the back door. There was a small sign there. It said that back door friends are best. That sign had been my first impression of her 16 years ago when she was a youngster of 80.

She opened that back door and greeted me with a hug, saying that she was so glad to see me and wasn’t I wonderful to take time out of my day to visit with her. She mentioned that she was now fully blind, that her hearing was failing, and would I please sit right beside her on the couch so that she could hear me. She paused for a moment after we sat down as she realized what she was doing. It was an awkward pause… and there was never an awkward pause in her presence. She said, “Ah, there I go complaining, silly me,” as if she was disgusted with herself.

In that moment she took my hand, seemingly hungry for human touch. I hugged her thin shoulders and told her, “Hey Adie, I understand. My mother went through this. You can talk to me. Go ahead and complain a bit. It’s ok.”

And so she did. For the first time in the 16 years that I had known her, she complained. She told me what it was like to be 96. Many of her dearest friends were long gone. Her health was failing. Her blindness meant she could no longer see those she loved, and hearing loss left her in fear of an increasing isolation. For three minutes she held forth without a pause and without interruption or comment from me. The pain of being in love with life yet feeling it slip away was palpable.

Then she stopped. It was sudden. After a short pause, she looked up with a mischievous smile and said, “Enough of my grumps, let’s talk about the good stuff.”

For the next three hours we talked about life, and work, and kids, and growing up. I told story after story from our children’s lives; the five year old in-your-face girl athlete who has never met a stranger, and the ten year old precociously intellectual boy. She asked question after question, pulling information and stories from me that I had thought long forgotten. And still she gave better than she got. She told stories of her life, and her years, and her world. Story after story tumbled out, hers and mine and ours. They are faded a bit now, blended together. But what I remember clearly is the laughter.

It had been a brutal few years for our family; we had lost a beautiful home betting on a business, and then had lost the business. We had given everything and now must re-build from almost nothing. She knew all of this and more. She understood the pain and the need to heal and grow and re-build. She understood and helped me understand that a woman and a man would face this differently. She didn’t lecture or analyze, but she taught… and I listened. Closely.

For three hours I took a Master’s class on living, and loving, and moving forward. And laughing in the face of the pain and helping others to laugh.

For three hours, I sat beside her frail, failing body and let her lead us down a path of life and love and laughter. It was non-stop, no breaks, no pauses, just one story tumbling after the other. Sometimes interrupting each other as close friends or family will with a completed sentence or thought.

Later as I drove away, I looked back in wonder. At 96 she had been more alive in those three hours than most of us ever achieve. I also remember thinking: That’s about the right ratio—three minutes of complaining, and three hours of love and laughter.

.

Posted in Character, Personal Development, Soul.

Tagged with Character, Human Potential, increasing isolation, laughter, love, Master's Class, right ratio, Soul.

2 comments

By Wayne Key – August 26, 2009

3 Rules for the Perfect Workout

At the end of the day most workouts work if you do. This weight set or that machine. This run or that bike ride. You can argue the relative merits all you want, but if you work at it, they pretty much all work.

That brings us to my 3 rules for the perfect workout. Do it! Do it! Do it! And a bonus rule, Love it!

Do it is pretty simple, just go out and do it. Choose something easy for your age and fitness level. Yes, I will say that again very slowly. Choose. Something. Easy. Choose to do it regularly. Choose a time that works for your life, your family, and your schedule.

Now pretend you’re Nike, kick your butt in gear and go do it. Motivation is much easier if you know the task will be easy. Much easier. The immediate goal is simple. It is not weight loss, nor fitness, nor even health. The immediate goal is to create a new habit. A solid life-changing habit.

Perhaps you can barely jog to the corner. Then go half way. Make it easy. Do it again tomorrow. Are you sore on that second or third day? That means you did too much. Tomorrow, sit your butt down and for the exactly the same amount of time that it takes to do the workout, sit and visualize it fully and completely. (I will go through this process in detail in another article.) Then go out again on day 3 and do your workout.

Translate Do It, Do It, Do It into Habit, Habit, Habit.

You are not Michael Jordan or Serena Williams or Lance Armstrong. Professional atheletes, especially the elite ones, long ago made the habit of working out. They do it smart and hard. If you are a pro athelete, you are not reading this article. You are out there earning your paycheck. You already have the discipline that comes from a deep long term habit. AND you have the best coachs, trainers and nutritionists in the world to make sure you that you don’t do too little, nor too much.

Get over it, guys. We are not pro atheletes. The pros will smoke us at 20 and 30 and often at 40, but if you keep at it and if they get lazy after they retire, you can smoke them at 50, 60, 70 and beyond.

If you want to be a “Lifer” in fitness start at the habit level. Otherwise, every plan and commitment you make will fall apart and eventually you will quit. Most people avoid pain when they can. This “no pain, no gain’ thing is for the pros who get a paycheck for painfully pushing the ragged edge. The rest of us need to focus on starting and NEVER stopping.

Your first job is to start the habit. Your second job is to keep the habit. Forget that nonsense about it taking 21 days or one month to create a lifetime habit. Bull. It takes what it takes. Each kind of habit, and each person is different.

Focus on creating a LONG term habit, and to do that you must make it a habit that you enjoy. Don’t batter your body; and don’t destroy your will and your self respect. Take one step at a time and keep stepping.

Studies have shown that most people over-estimate what they can do in a day or a week or a month. BUT the same studies show that most people radically under-estimate what they can do in a number of years.

Schedule it. Then Do It. Congratulate yourself and then Do It again. Sore? Back off the work, but stay on the schedule. Build the habit and the habit will build you.

Posted in Body, Character, Personal Development, Workouts.

Tagged with athletes, create a habit, Do it, easy, exercise, fitness, goal, habit, jog, Lance Armstrong, life changing habit, Lifer, long term habit, Michael Jordan, motivation, no pain no gain, pro, pros, Serena Williams, visualize, weight loss, workout.