112: Commitment Doesn't Always Feel Good

Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it, and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.

Hey, welcome to another episode. So today I want to talk about being committed and commitment, and explain what it means and how it feels because it might not feel the way you think it should feel.

But before I go into that, I want to let you know that I am having a retreat, and it's going to be in Hawaii. And I would love for you to be there. And so if you want to learn all the details, go to wealthymommd.com/retreat. Obviously, you could also just go to my website, there will be a link to learn more about it.

It's going to be three amazing days in Hawaii at the Four Seasons, not your average retreat. So I'm super excited, I hope you'll join me. And if you would like to make sure it's the right decision for you, you can also schedule some time with me to chat more about it. And that link is on the retreat page.

So I am super excited. It is already starting to fill up because I gave early bird access to my current clients who are inside Money For Women Physicians or my private one on one clients. And so most of you listening are probably not my paid clients and so this is probably the first thing you're hearing about it, or the first time rather.

Okay, so let's talk about the topic of today's episode. Now, I have been thinking a lot about what it actually means to be committed and how it feels in my body. And I have been talking periodically about my weight loss goal. And just to remind you about early April I decided to lose 15 pounds by my birthday, which was in about a month.

And it was not so much about hitting that 15 pound mark, I know all of us are so goal oriented. If I really think about it it's more of a process goal, which is different than an outcome goal.

Now, of course, I have the outcome goal of losing around 15 pounds. But really what I want to learn for the rest of my life is develop the habits of someone who is not 15 pounds heavier or more. And the main skill I've been learning and trying out is to stop overeating and to desire eating the whole thing less.

And this doesn't mean I can't enjoy food. This doesn't mean that I have to cut out certain foods because, you know, when I was growing up and I did lots of diets, I would like count calories, I would stop eating pizza and bread and things I liked, or I would have to have them only in a cheat day. And thank God, it doesn't have to be this way.

So if you're listening to this, and you're like, “What? You can eat what you want?” Yes, I have not counted a single freaking calorie and I've lost weight. I'm actually close to about 10 pounds less now. But that is my segue into today's topic.

So when I decided to embark on this process goal, this outcome goal, I had to commit to doing this. I had to decide to commit. And this is something I see a lot of my clients struggling with because they don't want to commit unless they know for sure it's going to happen. And I want to say that being committed doesn't necessarily feel good.

I think of being committed as trying and doing being committed until you get the outcome that you want, which means you're not always going to do it right. There's going to be mistakes and setbacks. Maybe lots of mistakes and setbacks. And in terms of the eating that's going to look like overeating, that's going to look like not doing what I said I was going to do, things like that. Those are the type of setbacks I'm talking about.

But for money, because I don't coach on weight loss inside my money program obviously, the mistakes and setbacks generally look like losing money. And so I see so many of my clients afraid to do things because they're not committed to the outcome. And I don't mean this as a bad thing, but they're more committed to their immediate comfort of not losing money or not making that decision.

Now what I mean by that is you have to be committed to the outcome more than your immediate pleasure or relief, right? So one thing that's really helped me is, so every Friday is pizza night in the Koo-Wolf household, and I used to have so much anxiety about this like, “Am I just going to eat one piece? Am I just going to eat two pieces? Or is it going to be a three slice night.?”

I think some of you or many of you have been there, you know exactly what I mean. And I had to really learn to stop eating when I was no longer hungry. And I've talked about this before, it's the difference between being satiated versus physically full, or even physically overfull. Like what does that feel like in my body?

And it makes sense eating fast doesn't help you with that because when you eat fast sometimes the feeling of being full is delayed, right? So that's why it's important to eat slowly. I'm a super-fast eater, so I've had to learn how to eat slowly. Which to my great surprise and delight actually means I can enjoy the food more because I'm savoring the taste and all that a lot more than when I'm stuffing my face super-fast.

I don't even know why I eat so fast, I think I always did. And I think a lot of you probably eat fast because we get so little time during our clinical day, right? Like you are lucky if you have 10 minutes to eat. So we're kind of used to just eating mindlessly and getting it inside our mouth as soon as possible.

So back to the pizza thing, so when I have the pizza in front of me, and I love pizza, like who doesn't? And I get to the point where I'm no longer hungry, which basically is one slice if I'm perfectly honest. Well, one slice after I've had some chicken wings. And then I'm faced with the decision to eat more, because of course I want to eat more, like of course.

And so in that moment I've had to remind myself of my commitment that I made, and generating the desire to be way more committed to the outcome than my immediate gratification of eating that second or third slice. I had to basically be in love, be in so much love to the outcome, to the goal that I want. I also explain it to my clients as the difference between short term pleasure versus long term pleasure. And that doesn't mean you're going to be deprived in the moment.

Now, I think I've talked about being deprived in the past, but being deprived means that you think you're going to have a less good time or you're not going to feel as good if you don't do something. And that is a thought and a feeling, meaning it's not true. It doesn't have to be true.

And so now I want to move on to feeling committed doesn't always feel good, because I kind of said at the stage, but it doesn't always feel good because in the moment you and your brain might be screaming to have that second slice. Like, “I’ll just have a few more bites. It's okay.” I'm just laughing because I know this is what I do, but I'm guessing maybe some of you do this too and maybe you're laughing too with me. I'm laughing with you, not at you. And I'm laughing at myself.

And so part of being committed is to be okay with not giving in to that desire. Being okay with thinking, “I really want that second slice, I really want to taste that melted cheese, that bread, that sauce in my mouth.” Now, a little side note, so many of my clients, including me, when we have the thought, “I don't want to do that,” we just listen to it.

And so I remember having a client once tell me, “But I'm not really interested in investing,” which is kind of similar to I don't really want to do it. And I just said, what if that's not required? Because it's not.

And so the flip side is true for when you do want something, it doesn't mean you actually have to do it. And we all have several examples during the day, our life where we wanted to do something or want something, but we didn't do it, right? We have the ability to not give in to what we want all the time, that’s self-control.

Like for example, here's like a kind of a benign example, but I'm sure during the day some of you are like, “Oh, I’d really like a Starbucks coffee,” cappuccino, whatever, caramel macchiato. But you don't necessarily go to Starbucks and do it. So that's just like a simple example where the consequences are like whatever, you know?

But let's sort of up the stakes a bit, right? So on my pizza example you want to eat that second or third slice. Just because you want to do it doesn't mean you have to do it. And for those of you in committed relationships where a part of the agreement is to not date other people, you may be attracted to somebody else. You may want to do things with that person. But that doesn't mean you do it, okay?

Now, here's the other side of commitment that I want talk about. Now, one of the first things I said was that part of the reason why we hesitate to commit is because we don't want to fail, even though part of being committed is to take action until you get that outcome. Which makes sense that that's what's actually required to succeed. But many of us want like a guarantee that we're going to succeed.

And I'm just going to tell you, nothing is guaranteed. No one can guarantee things. But what you can guarantee to yourself is that you will never stop trying. And I really blame the school system for this because school, I think, is not useful for the most part, it doesn't teach you how to be good at life. It basically has taught us and ingrained in us that failure should be avoided at all costs because failing is bad. Even though in real life, part of life is to fail.

Can you imagine, this is mainly for those of you who didn't marry the first person that you met. But for those of you, most of you, including me, where we had relationship fails, maybe multiple? Can you imagine if we gave up after the first relationship that didn't give up? I mean, we would all be alone, right?

But I, myself, committed myself to meeting someone. And that didn't mean that it always felt good. I mean, it was heartbreaking, devastating on the relationships that didn't work out where I really wanted it to. And it would be really easy for me be like, “That's it. I'm going to be single for the rest of my life.” And I definitely had those thoughts in the past, but I never gave up.

What would it be like for you if you never gave up? Whether it's yourself, whether it's an outcome, whether it's a dream? There are no guarantees, but I'll tell you when you commit to something and stay committed, you make the chances of succeeding way more possible. I can't quantify it, but I don't know, 1 million times more likely.

Because here's a deal, when you don't commit, you don't take action. And then guess what? You basically guarantee the failure. But we think it's safer to kind of stay that way. We think it's safer to not expose ourselves to failure.

So I want to leave you guys with this, what have you been hesitant or afraid to commit to? We all have some of those. Why are you afraid to commit to it? What would it be like for you to commit, knowing that you can guarantee how you show up?

That's really all we can guarantee. And what I mean by that is you're not always going to show up perfectly. You're going to have setbacks, you're going to have fails. What if you could guarantee that you would be kind to yourself and love yourself when you do? Because it's not an if, it's a when.

All right, that's what I want to talk to you about commitment. And the last thing I want to say is, it was only recently that I committed to my business. And some of you might be surprised by that, but I kind of always had the back door sort of opened for me to quit and do something else. Probably work as a dermatologist, which really isn't a bad plan B at all right?

But I only had that option in the corner because I was not fully committed to making my business wildly successful. Now, I already have a successful business by most people's standards, by my standards, but I want it to be wildly successful. And yes, that means making a lot of money. And I have not been committed to that because of the required fails involved in creating and expanding a business.

I've had many fails in my business, so it's not like I've never had one. But I would say in the past year I've had more in terms of frequency than when I first started, and it was tough. It was hard. I'm just going to be honest, it doesn't feel good when you don't get the outcome that you wanted. Which is what failure means by the way, all it means is not getting the outcome that you wanted.

And I've been doing so much work to kind of distance myself, meaning not making it about me, not making myself wrong when I don't get the outcome. It's been so much easier for me to take a step back and really take that logical pragmatic thinking hat like, “Oh, I didn't get the outcome I wanted, I wonder why.”

And what I do is I come up with a possible reason. I might make a list of things. And then I just get to work to problem solve for that, which is very different than, “Oh my god, I suck. This isn't working. This isn't going to work out, maybe I should quit,” right?

So I want you to commit to something. Maybe it's to make a lot of money because you want a certain type of life. Maybe it's committing to losing weight. Maybe it's committing to meeting your life partner. Whatever it is, it's available to you the outcome that you want, you just have to commit first. Okay, I will talk to you guys next week.

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