Lesson 3 of 26 · 3 min

C is for Commitment

Motivation is a feeling and feelings are weather. Commitment is a decision made in advance so that you are not renegotiating it while you are hungry, tired, and standing in front of the refrigerator.

C is for Commitment3 min

People who succeed long term are not the people who feel like it more often. They are the people who decided once, clearly, and then stopped putting the decision back up for a vote every single day.

The reason this matters is willpower depletion. Your capacity to deliberate is a finite resource, and it is lowest exactly when temptation is highest — late at night, after a hard day, at the end of a long meal. If the decision is still open at that moment, you will lose it more often than you win it.

So make the decision when you are strong, and write it down. "I do not eat in the living room." "I drink water first." A commitment stated in advance is not a restriction; it is a gift from the rested version of you to the exhausted one.

Practice this

Write one commitment as a plain sentence, in the present tense, and put it where you will see it.
Make it small enough that you are certain you can keep it for two weeks.
Tell one person what you committed to.

Sit with this

What decision are you re-making every day that you could make once?
What is the difference between what you want and what you have committed to?
When is your willpower lowest? What is already decided for that moment?

Going deeper

Longer sessions from the Doc Russ archive that expand on this letter. Optional, but worth your time.

Session 6 — Commitment55 min

PROGRESS Commitments27 min