Day 397 - Finishing a post

I commit myself to finish this post.

I have a long-standing behavioral pattern of starting lots of little projects and not finishing them. For example, I've now got 4 draft posts starting with "Day 397 - ..." Some of them have have only a sentence; others have enough content to be published.

An important question = WHY?! Why am I doing this? There are several angles to take on it, so I'm going to methodically work through them.

1)   Trying to blog about too many angles of a particular topic. This is what happened last time, and what I am now at risk of doing, but this time, I'm committed to finishing. When unexpected angles, dimensions, facets, factors, etc. come into play, suddenly the whole idea of the plan can become shaky. It's like the mind is driven to reach a goal within a rigid plan, and as soon as things aren't going as expected, then the drive vanishes and the beginning never meets the end.

2)   Nurture. It's far too easy to just blame my parents, but I can see similarities in myself and the way I approach projects and various activities in life. I could go on to make comparisons, but that's not direction that I'd like to take my writing. The key within this is to recognize the similarities between Self and parents/whomever, write and expand our understanding about the strengths and weaknesses, and then TAKE RESPONSIBILITY to leverage our strengths and strengthen our weaknesses.

3)   Focus. I have 11 tabs open in my browser, not including this one or the other 220 I have stored in my OneTab extension. Like I said, I have an issue with finishing what I start. Fret not! I've got this point in my sights and I'm not backing away. To stay focused is simple (see the first 7 words in the post). And if that fails, investigate what went wrong, and start again with a fresh commitment. Why is this so powerful? Because Self has all the power, unless you give it away through accepting and allowing mental programs to drive your thoughts and so your Self.

4)   Prioritization. Without it, we can cast our vision too wide and quickly become overwhelmed by it all. My relationship with the sensation of overwhelmingness has typically been avoidance. As soon as things become "too much," I turn in the other direction. So, "too many responsibilities to do right now" = avoid all responsibility and find bliss in a game of Sudoku. It hurts to write. Self-Honesty is easy, said no one ever. Solution = orient to only the top priority and go for it. If a higher priority comes up, then focus every fiber of your being on that task until it's done so that you may return to the highest priority you were previously working on.

5)   Habit. Procrastination is not just something to take pride or shame in. It's also a habituated behavior. The mental pathways that lead to this behavior over and over again become favored in specific situations. Throughout my school years. I did what I wanted to do after school, and I did my homework (sometimes very) late into the night. This was my preference, and whatever the negative consequences were, I simply wrote them off for years on end. Now, the pattern is basically the same, except now, I've got a new starting point: Do what is best for all. So, it's not just me considering me anymore. To build my future and create significant value for others, I need to shed this habit. How? Self-forgiveness and corrected application commitments...work damn well.


Wrapping it up: I realize now that I don't have to have the perfect post...

6)   Perfectionism. Almost forgot it. I've intentionally left the above line to show my willingness to no longer trouble myself with the impossible goal of perfection defined in comparison with the ideal. This haughty goal takes a lot of energy and has gone on too long. Enough! The correction is in realizing that what I've written so far is already perfect within the process of perfection. Meaning, it doesn't have to be perfect now, but through continually applying myself and adjusting things as I go along, I will ultimately get as close as I can to perfection. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is living to your highest potential.


It is important to realize that forward movement is essential to becoming a success in any endeavor. Trying to reach perfection in one fell swoop and giving up if any obstacle comes up is a recipe for regret. Practice the writing and Self-honesty (@DIPlite). Move within imperfection while striving for a well defined outcome, and be ready to parkour any obstacles that stand in your way. Be ready for anything. Focus on the outcome you want, and focus on the solution when problems arise.

Creation is a movement and it doesn't always go as planned. Expect the unexpected and move like water.

source: garinkilpatrick.com

Day 255 - Who am I within Commitment? Part 2

I commit myself to writing out everything, not allowing personal shame or embarrassment hold me back.

I commit myself to show you that I'll still be alive and well by the time I add one more '5' to the end of 'Day 255.' This blog will be the proof of my commitment to full integrity because I'm not going to be able to bullshit 7 years of writing, especially with the premise of self-honesty. Check out all the Journey to Life Blogs to get an idea of what it takes.

Regarding that first commitment, this shame/embarrassment factor has played a significant role thus far. Since the beginning of my interactions, I had this fear of diminishing my reputation and through that, I held myself back from participating. I was around the Desteni material for over 2 years with a constant backchat that I didn't want to participate and compromise my self-image. What will people think of me?..and so on and so forth. I've recently realized how I've preserved this fear by defining my involvement within Desteni as something that will one day be seen as prestigious. Through that, I realized that I wasn't only still afraid to assert myself and participate, I was allowing myself to piggy-back on the Desteni name. Shame is here.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to transfer the fear of losing my reputation into a passive leech-like state of association with an organization that I perceive will automatically establish my positive reputation. Ah, the depth is nice.

" fear of losing my reputation"
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself according to how others perceive my by placing value in my reputation, not realizing that my true reputation will be a reflection of my own self-honest work.

I commit myself to the realization of my self-honest work ethic within everything that I do.

The issue of shame and embarrassment is a work in progress. Stay tuned. I want to briefly dive into other areas of troublesome self-commitments and expose a few reasons why I am struggling to produce lasting self-change. The first one to mind is my nail biting habit. I've tried stopping this habit several times, and I have  been able to stop for at most a month, but I typical falter much sooner. When I first began this JTL blog, I hit my nail biting habit over a three day period and it only provided a temporary charge of illusionary change. Since then I've sparsely and timidly made a few posts about the nail biting, but the truth is I was crippled by failure. I had manifested the failure that I feared, and I allowed it to spiral into defeated character. Boo hoo, poor me. Na, screw that. I realize now how dumb that is. Why would I not just get back up and keep trying until I succeed?

And on to the reasons for giving up on my commitments:

• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I do not have enough information to carry forward with stopping my participation. By placing self-change as something great and significant, I had set myself up for failure.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to make self-change something special that requires something more than what I can handle at that point in time, believing I need to be something more to stop myself.

The above here is my primary justification for allowing myself to to take a failure and let it define me. This is not a real self-commitment. This is me showing me who I am in relation to self-honest commitment. So the take away point from this parable is: don't give up so quickly! I only required to dig deeper and see where the problem is. What is the nature of the problem? How have I rendered myself unable/helpless/victim in relation to the point I am facing? What is it exactly that I don't understand? Breathe here. If I don't know what I don't know, AND I react to that = self-sabotage. If I don't know what I don't know, and I breathe, I can much more practically take on the situation = self-support.

I commit myself to no longer allow myself to simply play victim of a greater force and give up on myself. I realize that I have support from all of humanity, and yet I am the one that must walk through the challenges  of applying and living self-commitments.

The second key factor in faltering on my commitments is my start point is wack. How can I make a commitment to myself if I make it for others?

• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to write commitment because I believed I had to as others were reading/watching me. In this separation, I placed the responsibility of accountability in others. I made my readers my policeman. In ways I still do this, and this point will need to be expanded on soon. I'm sick telling myself that I must get the blog done before midnight so my readers can see that I write daily.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not make commitments to myself, strictly for myself. I never liked making promises to anyone, and I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to continue to place others before self, where I write for them instead of me.

I commit myself to stop and breathe before I make any more commitments to myself. <-- This is a significantly different starting point. Typically, in the past, I've been spewing out self-commitments while considering if/how others will hold me accountable. This starting point is ineffective.

I commit myself to begin making all my commitments from the starting point consideration of practicality in the sense of my ability to actually carry them through into my actual living.

I commit myself to stop spewing commitments for the sake of a good show. Starting point is huge. This ties back into my reputation issue. I've for so long defined myself externally, that I've only ever tried to put on a good show. Self-honesty is HUGE game changer.

And I'm super down. So stop being a clown. Why do you frown? Get out of town. ...I'm done.

photo credit