Action follows commitment.
I had a revelation about a decade ago. I had been stuck in a rut, where I kept doing the same things, but I didn’t know how make a change to start something new. Eventually I realized that if I just decided to do something, I would figure out the next steps.
It started with me wondering if I could learn to snowboard. Obvious first step – take a “first-time snowboarder” lesson with rental equipment included. I liked it enough to take a second lesson. And another. Eventually I bought my own equipment, and kept going because I enjoyed it.
Later that year, I wondered if I could go bikepacking. I had bought a touring bike with racks so the bike could handle it – could I? Eventually I went to REI, asked some questions, bought a bunch of lightweight camping equipment, and biked to a nearby campground to camp overnight. No problem. A week or two later, I did a week-long bikepacking trip down the coast of California through Monterey, Big Sur and on down to Santa Barbara. It was amazing.
A few months after that, a friend and I made plans to visit India for a couple weeks over the holidays. My friend dropped out, which made me almost quit because I had never traveled internationally by myself, and India intimidated me. But I wondered whether I could figure it out. So I went. I had no plan, just got on the plane with a Lonely Planet and a hotel booked for my first night. I figured the worst case scenario is I spent some money to get an early plane ticket home. Instead, I had a fantastic experience sightseeing all around India.
On the flight back from India, I was journaling about my experience and realized I had a new superpower: if I decided I was going to do something, I would figure out how to do it (this is especially true now, as there are YouTube or online tutorials available for almost everything). In the years since, I became a coach and solopreneur, I became a parent, I wrote a book, and now I’m launching a new class this fall (click the link in my profile!). But it all stemmed from adopting the belief that I could learn to do something new.
The biggest blocker to change is the stories we tell ourselves about our identity. “I could never…” or “that’s not who I am”.
It’s not…until you decide it is.
When you make a commitment to a change, you will figure out the next steps to become the person who embodies that change.
What commitments do you want to make?