Skip to main content

No Commitment


I saw a commercial this am for local gym. Ironically, I was working out at another gym in town when the ad came on. Anyway, the commercial espoused all the great features of their gym (weights, cardio, free candy – you know, the normal stuff) as well as some membership specials they are running for a “limited time only,” which in gym speak, means “whenever you get around to dragging your lazy butt in here, we will be waiting with our ‘limited time’ offer.” They mentioned low monthly fees, $0 enrollment and then, as big bold letters came across the screen, “NO COMMITMENT,” the narrator excitedly reports that you may cancel at any time.

What a horrible way to encourage someone to pursue a lifetime of fitness! Right from the beginning, this gym is giving people an out, an excuse to give up. No commitment! It’s an awful message to anyone who is trying to take the right steps to better themselves. It’s one thing if we are talking about a magazine subscription, a membership to a local museum or a movie streaming service. Those are all things that you may decide are not important or not necessary. Maybe you only need them for a season in your life. But your health? That’s not something you can’t “fix” in just a few months, not needing a whole year of a gym membership to accomplish.

Now, you may find a slightly better gym in four months and be “stuck” at your current gym for the remainder of the year, but if you are exercising consistently and making a difference in your physical and emotional health, does it really matter if the evil gym that made you sign up for a year is three minutes out of the way compared to the new gym you found? No, where you exercise is far less important than that you exercise.

Along with health and fitness, marriage, career, education, parenting: these are all lifelong journeys requiring tremendous commitment and dedication. Embarking on any venture into even a single one of these areas with a “no commitment” attitude is recipe for failure and disappointment. You can’t just “date” improvement. You must commit.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Toxic Humility

We have all seen false humility: the guy who tries to hide his arrogance with feigned modesty. It’s usually pretty obvious and always obnoxious. But there is also another variation of false humility out there: toxic humility. This is often displayed in self-deprecating talk and a lack of self-confidence, belittling or undermining one’s own talents and abilities. The danger in this kind of behavior is twofold: it is too often accepted as true humility and like a virus, it spreads doubt and disbelief. To clarify, it is not that the bearer of this toxic humility isn’t honest about his view of himself. That is the very issue: he absolutely believes he has little value or utility. He thinks downplaying his own worth is humility but I disagree. CS Lewis said it best when he wrote, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking about yourself less.” His point being, true humility is not an ever-present raincloud of self-doubt that follows you around. It’s a focus on
Post a Comment
Read more

Primed for Progress

Just as some pumps need to be primed to work effectively, our lives need to be “primed” to flow efficiently. Good mornings and productive days don’t happen by accident, and by “priming” your day, you can set yourself up for better results. Does it mean you won’t have bad days? Of course not, but it’s making your day happen instead of just waiting for what happens. Once again, it’s a choice of being proactive rather than reactive. You will still have challenges and difficulties, but how you face those hurdles and respond to the struggles will be different with a primed mindset. I am sure there are many ways to prime your day and set the tone for the hours ahead, and what works for one won’t necessarily work for all. However, the process of creating a plan or a model of how things should unfold is a great place for anyone to start. Also, as I have mentioned before, how you actually start the morning is critical - the battle with the alarm clock is your first chance at victory for
Post a Comment
Read more

Flower Among Thorns

About six or seven years ago, my wife was around three months pregnant as we eagerly anticipated the birth of another child. One night, as I lay sleeping, I had a dream that our baby was born. It was a beautiful little girl with thin, wispy hair and large, bright eyes punctuating her beautiful face. I held her proudly in my arms and stared down at this precious little creation. I carefully handed her off to her older brother, who was just a toddler himself, as he sat on the coach, arms outstretched, anxiously awaiting the chance to hold his baby sister. I helped him prop up a pillow underneath his little arms to help support my daughter and then stepped back to take in the amazing sight as he gazed down at her with both pride and amazement in his eyes. As I stood there watching them, the dream quickly faded. When I woke up, my eyes met the tearful glance of my wife. “I’m bleeding,” she said as she fought back the emotions, “I think I am miscarrying.” Those words sunk deeply i
1 comment
Read more