Commitment should come before motivation or desire. What do I mean by that? If you wait until you are totally ready to take healthy risks or procrastinate or avoid doing something constructive (going to the gym, going to a support group, or whatever healthy action it may be), it may never happen. Another fact is that the motivation to do healthy actions can be strong at first (maybe you treat the healthy action like a fad and dive deep and heavy into it – then burn out later). Commitment means doing it even if you don’t feel up to it, and especially when you don’t feel up to it.
You do it (the healthy action), without thinking too much about it (so you don’t talk yourself out of it), then pat yourself on the shoulder with pride afterwards. Notice that when we have done actions that are destructive, we had fingers of criticism pointed at us, but we rarely get complimented for doing healthy things. It is totally okay to have self-pride in taking healthy actions. If possible, if there is someone supportive who can see the difference in you after you perform healthy actions, tell that person to point out these differences. There is nothing wrong with feeding motivation, but just as I said, commitment comes first before motivation.
I want to throw one other thing in here. Make part of your commitment involve being willing to ask for help and to use that help/assistance when needed. I want to say this loud and clear, there is nothing wrong with asking for help. You deserve allowing help and some others should not be denied if they want to offer themselves for help (as long as you are not taking advantage of them). Some people need to help others (as long as it is not enabling a destructive behavior).
Asking for help is especially true if you have a severe problem that you can’t fix on your own. The process that many people go through, is as follows:
- Try to fix it on my own
- Fail – realize that I can’t fix it on my own
- Ask for help
- Use the help and resources that I have been given
- Commit myself to following the new way of life
- Keep doing healthy behaviors and when I find myself slipping, get back on the path