“The only limits I have are the ones I place on myself.” Danny Cahill wrote those words in his song, “Reach for it”. Those who know me may be thinking, “Alison & limits? Those two words don’t go together.” And they may be right in many ways.
I had a prenatal stroke, which would limit most people. But now I am doing side planks and star pushups, I’m the most mobile non-driver you’ll ever meet, and I can get to other states and back in a day’s time. I do have limits though.
The weight I still need to lose comes from limits. The feeling of “stuck” I have felt at various times in the last two years has been partially out of my control, but not all of it. Some of it has come from me limiting my own choices. Who do you honor by committing?
I have had the opportunity in the last several months to look at my commitments, as well as my attitudes toward them. When it comes to honoring commitments, I historically honor commitments to everyone else, and only then do I MAYBE honor the commitments to myself. I’ll help someone with their personal or professional pursuits, and in the process I leave my own hanging – usually by talking on the phone with them when I had originally committed to exercise.
Competing Commitments
Danny has been working with us in his Simply Lose It coaching group on identifying, and then challenging our competing commitments. When we have something we really want (such as losing weight, getting out of debt, growing spiritually, etc.), but other hidden agendas consistently come against it through actions we are doing or not doing, the trend is a competition to our commitment. What we really want gets trumped by our competing commitment. Here’s an example of what it might look like:
I’m committed to losing x pounds in 6 months.
Things I’m doing that keep me from losing the weight:
I justify cheating based on social needs or how well I’m doing, I eat out too much, I drink sweet tea, and I allow one cheat to turn into 2 or 3
Things I’m not doing that keep me from losing the weight:
I am not getting workouts in, I am not eating the meal plan, and I am not staying consistent
Why do I or don’t I take the above actions? Time management, excuses, losing my resolve, impatience
My competing commitments are:
I am more committed to excuses and stress management than losing weight.
I am more committed to eating out and cheating than eating the meal plan and losing weight
I am more committed to drinking sweet tea than losing weight
I am more committed to sporadically dodging workouts for various reasons than working out to lose weight
What are you most committed to achieving? What other commitments are competing with that commitment? To achieve what you most want, you have to move it above all of those other commitments, and act on it accordingly. Saying you are MOST COMMITED TO something doesn’t make it happen. If your results are that your competing commitment are winning, then you are truly most committed to your competing commitments. So how do we challenge these competing commitments?
Challenge It!
With all of these Do’s, I can write an “I don’t”, such as I do cheat too much –I don’t stay consistent enough to meet my goal.
After identifying my competing commitments, I need to take action to challenge them. I am shortening my commitment into smaller commitment times, making it easier to chalk up a win.
Struggling with too many cheats in a week, I am shortening my goal time to 3 and a half days from a week. Since I want to challenge credit card debt, I’m committing to not using credit cards for at least a month. Finding something you CAN DO to resist the competition arms yourself for the battle!
Competing with God
As I’ve marinated on this idea of competing commitments, I’ve also seen how it translates in my life spiritually. In the Bible, Jesus says in John 10:10, “The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy – I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly.” Satan has been competing with God from the beginning. Think about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I read a meme this week that said, “Satan tries to limit your praying because he knows your praying will limit him.” The Name of Jesus will always challenge Satan. Nothing formed against us shall stand. Competing commitments have come, are coming, and will come. So let’s challenge them accordingly to overcome them and, in turn, get what we truly want!
Danny’s song “Reach for it” also says, “Just when I think my limit is found, I will go searching for more fertile ground.” Where will you search for the fertile ground? The Journey Training offered me fertile ground in my class, and a continual fertile ground each month! Participants have the opportunity to evaluate their commitments and break through their limits. Are you ready to find your fertile ground? The first thing you can do to challenge your competing commitments is to sign up for the very next Threshold class today! It has helped me, and I promise it can help you!
For a free copy of Danny’s song “Reach for it”, email him and ask for it at Danny@TheDannyCahill.com and he’ll send you an MP3!
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I’ve always wondered why rules are so hard to follow. Have you ever felt that way? It seems that when there is a rule, I gravitate to it. The rule is like the front porch light, and I’m the bug – frantically trying to break free but trapped by its gravity!
I was driving my daughter’s friend home when we came to a stop light. I glanced over and saw a really BIG sign. It said “NO TRESPASSING! VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED.” I said to her, “Look at that sign! That is the biggest no trespassing sign I have ever seen!” It was painted on two 4’x8’ plywood boards! She looked at me with her eyes wide open and said, “That makes me want to go in there!”
Why is this? Why are rules so hard to follow?
You become what you focus on
I once heard a story. There were two young boys who loved to visit their grandpa. He had a great big backyard with toy tractors and tools, and they were always excited to go to his house. When they arrived this day, they quickly asked, “Grandpa! Can we go play in your backyard?”
“Sure you can boys! But just don’t spit on my bushes!”
The two boys looked at each other in confusion, then shrugged and sped out the door. The grandpa walked over to the window and peeked through the blinds. The two boys walked down the steps and looked over at the bushes. They looked at each other, grinned, and before they ran to the tractors they spit on the bushes, which they would have never noticed had Grandpa not mentioned them.
You see, when we set rules to follow, we bring to the forefront of our thoughts and mind those things we shouldn’t do. In my own life, and in the lives of those whom I coach, I’ve found that the best way to break a rule is to make one. We all gravitate to what is forbidden. Adam and Eve did it in the Garden. God told them they could eat of any tree except the one. And we know the outcome of that story!
I had lunch with Jillian Michaels in Los Angeles and said to her, “Jillian, I can’t shake it! The more I think to stay away from certain foods, the more I seem to want them!” She said to me, “Danny, I have one all-natural, Newman’s Own dark chocolate peanut butter cup every single day of my life. Why? Because if I deprive myself of it I will only want it more – then I eat 2 or 3 or even 4! Don’t deprive yourself of the things you love – just work them into your plan and stick to the plan!” I’ll tell you, I’m not the thinnest guy on the block right now, but I’m not 300, 400, or even 500 pounds anymore either. And it has to do with that plan Jillian was talking about.
Set standards, and make them a part of your plan
If we tend to become what we focus on, why would we want to focus on what not to do? Let’s focus on the plan – let’s focus on what we need to do! Let’s set some standards.
Let’s look at the definitions of standard: “A level of quality or attainment. An idea used to measure the norm (normal) in comparative evaluations. Accepted as normal or average.”
When we set standards, we raise the bar, creating a target to shoot for. When we set rules, we create governing boundaries for ourselves, or curbs, to stay within. Rules limit our performance instead of creating a higher standard to attain. And in my experiences, when I’m shooting for something, I am much more motivated to achieve it.
Know the standards, find the target
When I was at The Biggest Loser ranch, we learned which foods to eat. We learned to add water to our diet and to increase our steps every day. We also created a standard of workout that expanded our lives. One of the running jokes about being a Biggest Loser Alumni is that once you’ve been a contestant, walking distance means a completely different thing. I used to think walking distance was 600 feet, but now it means 5 miles!
Sure, we knew to stay away from certain foods, but more than that we knew the foods to gravitate to; and when we eat the right food and drink plenty of water, the wrong foods don’t even come into the picture. You see what I mean? Sure, we avoided having certain foods within our grasp; we just left them off the grocery list.
Standards work in all areas of life
Standards work in your office or family, with your team, or in any area of life! I once heard Mike Krzyzewski, the Duke University head coach and coach of several U.S. Olympic basketball teams explain something. How can you coachThe Dream Team and have several huge egos such as Michael Jordon, Scotty Pippen, Karl Malone, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing, and Charles Barkley, and have them work together as a team? How do you tell them to be on time or adhere to a curfew? These are the greatest names in basketball! Well, Coach Mike explained that at the first meeting, instead of laying out rules to the team, HE asked them what standards should be created for the team. They went around one by one and shouted them out: “Be on time!” “Get your sleep!” and on and on…until they set the standards for their team themselves. Because they had ownership in the standards, they adhered to them. Coach Krzyzewski said that if he’d set rules for them, they would have gone out of their way to break them and prove who was in charge.
This can work in your own life, too. In your family, let your kids take part in setting the family standards. In your office or business, let your employees or team take part. Their ownership of the standards will give them a voice, and in turn motivation to adhere to them without so many rules. And in your own life, don’t deprive yourself of all enjoyable things, but set standards that include some of those things, and more importantly the things that will get you where you want to go. You might just find that the rules will fade into the background and not become the focus when you are busy shooting for your standards, and in turn shooting for the stars!
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Last week I was speaking to a group of 6th grade classes at a middle school about dreams. Giving up on my dreams was a large part of how I ended up almost 500 pounds, feeling helpless and hopeless almost giving up on everything. My introduction video says at 17 seconds in, “When I was 17 years old, I was a rock star. I was lookin’ good and feelin’ good; I feel like somebody’s stolen my dream. This thing has stolen my life – and I want my life back!”
There’s so much truth in that statement. My passion has always been music. I went to my first concert at 16, saw the band on stage and the crowd, and made my decision: I was going to be a rock star.
Now, we all know that the odds of being a rock star were not in my favor. But I had an ingredient that could sure help: passion.
Opportunity Knocks
I went right home, dug a dusty guitar out of the closet, and went to work! I began learning melody lines from my favorite songs. After a few weeks, I heard some of my school mates had a band, so I went to watch them and was really impressed.
The week before I had just bought a bass guitar at a pawn shop at the advice of someone who told me, “You’re playing bass, not guitar. Guitar plays all of the strings at once, and you’re only playing 1 note at a time.” So I ran to the pawn shop and bought beat up, hollow-body bass and amplifier. The band I was watching finished rehearsal, and the bass player had to go. I asked, “How many gigs have you played?”
“None. We’ve only learned 6 songs. We want to learn Detroit Rock City by Kiss, and The Trooper by Iron Maiden, but Greg can’t play the bass lines.”
“I could play those bass lines,” I calmly declared, knowing I had barely been playing bass for a week. After convincing them of my bass playing prowess – which was completely falsified – they said, “Okay, Come back next Saturday and we’ll play those songs.” Boy did I have my work cut out for me! But I practiced until my fingers hurt until late every night, and the next Saturday I replaced Greg as the bass player in that unnamed band! I was really going to be a rock star! 3 months later we played a dance at school and became rocks stars on the high school level!
Dreams are the driver, opportunity is the road
Over the next 10 years, I played with several bands. I soon found myself on stage with Donny Osmond in front of thousands. Later, the band I was playing for actually knocked New Kids on the Block out of the number one singing group in the nation. We were on the Billboard Top 40, and had a record contract with RCA. After that opportunity didn’t pan out, a 3-man band I was in recorded an album and was ready to release it worldwide. It was bootlegged overseas, and the rug was pulled out from underneath me again. Later I found out Unleash the Dog was the #1 band in Greece in 1996, beating out Metallica and Rob Zombie – but we never even saw a cent of the profit.
At that point, another opportunity was sure to present itself, but I gave up. This is what I talked to those 6th graders about last week – not giving up on their dreams. My mantra since The Biggest Loser has been Lose Your Quit. There will always be another opportunity, so never give up.
Dreams can look different, so take the opportunities that come your way
At 39, I felt like my music career was over. My friends in that band in the 90’s (PC Quest) had gone on to do great things. Chad was the lead singer of Shiny Toy Guns, Steve was a studio musician and performer in LA, Drew was on tour with several artists, and I was left wondering what happened. Bob from Unleash the Dog was now in Arizona and was the national head of music instruction for Fender, and I could go on and on. They didn’t give up.
I only saw my dream of a rock star one way. Others kept their passion and brought it to the opportunities that came to them while I simply gave up. After going to my experiential training in 2008 and re-igniting my passion, I made it onto the cast of The Biggest Loser. The funny thing is, on that show I wrote new music. It provided me an opportunity to awaken those dreams once again – just not exactly how I thought.
I wouldn’t be a rock star, but I would be living my dream with passion! Since the show, I have spoken in 5 countries and 45 states in the US – to over a million people – and each time I close with two songs: the first I ever wrote called I can’t forget about you and Second Chance that I wrote on the show. I’m not a rock star, but I am living my dream, speaking and passing that passion of not giving up to others. And as I played Second Chance last week to those 6th graders, it was a dream fulfilled.
Where is your opportunity?
Your dreams are real, and they are possible. Those 6th graders raised their hands and told me what they wanted to be. One in the front row said, “I want to play in the NBA!” He was one of the shortest kids in the crowd, and that was a very lofty goal. I told him, “Never give up on that dream! And take the opportunities that come your way and you’ll live that dream! It might look different than you think, but it can happen. You might be a coach, or an announcer on TV for the NBA, or you very well might be the next Kevin Durant. Who knows?”
I thought about the movie The Sand Lot. Bennie made it to the big show, and Scotty Smalls made it as the LA Dodger announcer. They both realized their dreams – just in a different way.
So that vision that has been placed in your heart is true. Don’t waste an opportunity to bring the passion you have to the opportunities that present themselves. Even if it looks different that you thought, you can be a rock star!
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I hear it all the time: don’t sweat the small stuff. This can be true at times, such as someone leaving the cap off the toothpaste or other irritations such as not getting your way. However, if you live by this saying in other areas of your life, it can lead to disaster!
Small stuff becomes big stuff
I was mowing the lawn the other day, and when I was weed-eating the back corner of our yard, I saw it – my greatest enemy – POISON IVY! I am extremely allergic to poison ivy; so much so that I have been covered from head to toe, had in in my eyes and ears, and even in places I will not identify in this blog! Being a land surveyor since the age of 9, I’ve had the pleasure (actually the annoyance) of meeting this terrorizing plant on more occasions than the average Joe! Just take a hike with me at Turkey Mountain – you’ll hear me mention this plant at least 50 times during the hike – warning everyone that it is looming just beyond the boundary of the trail!
Poison Ivy has been in that area of my backyard for years, but I learned that if you remove it while it is small, it’s easy. Just a pair of gloves and pulling a few small plants and almost no chance of getting the rash if you’re careful. Obviously, that area of the yard hadn’t been tended in quite a long time, so that small stuff became big stuff and now it’s going to take much more effort to handle. The same can be said for other things in our lives, too.
Little Foxes seem small – but in the end they add up
Those peanut M&M’s in the breakroom… Oh how they call my name! Just one won’t hurt, right? Well, I can tell you that I didn’t make it onto the cast of The Biggest Loser by eating just one M&M.
I made it on by eating just one M&M over and over again! Yes, I see it all the time, and have even experienced it again myself this year! Those little snacks and treats add up to enough calories that all the weeks of working hard in the gym makes absolutely no difference! Those small things canceled out my work, and in turn became a big thing again.
Yes, there have been people in my boot camp that haven’t lost very much weight. They feel better and are more physically fit, but the pant size just isn’t getting smaller. It is usually a lazy diet that causes this. For the most part, they may be making good choices when choosing what to eat. And then there are those small things – the few chips as they walk by the table, the couple of drinks they had on Saturday night, or yes – the M&M as you walk by the break room – that add up over the week to be as big as that 3500 calories you burned. And that 3500 calories you burned would have been a pound you lost! But the scale doesn’t move. This is just one example, but it can be applied to many areas of your life – in your business, your family, your faith and in you.
Small steps over time add up to big results
Results can always happen in a positive or negative aspect! Just as the above example I gave you in my own life, small choices can add up to sabotaging what you really want for what you want in the moment. Those small decisions add up to bigger results. Brian Klemmer once told me, “Results – often harsh, but always fair.” The good news is that it works both ways! Lately, I’ve been walking into that break room to get coffee or water and I look straight at those M&M’s and say out loud, “Nope! Not today folks!” And the results I am getting are amazing. I have lost 15 pounds in the past 3 weeks! A combination of that decision with a few others have made my results move in a different direction. And this direction is the one I desire!
I want to ask you a question: are you getting the results you desire? If not, could it be a product of those small choices you are making? Taking an inventory of your life in the areas you want to change is a must to actually see that change come to pass. When you see those small things that are growing into big things, it’s easier to handle it now than after weeks, months, or perhaps years of “putting up with it” and seeing it grow into something huge!
My friend Arthur Greeno was talking to me about small stuff a few months back. He saw that his Chick-Fil-A store wasn’t getting the numbers at the drive-through they had been in the past. He investigated and found out that the automatic change machine wasn’t working. He told me that counting up the change not only added to mistakes that can be made, but added an average of 6-seconds per transaction.
Not really that much, right? Well, that small amount can add up and cause their service to suffer…and also the profits to dwindle! In fact, if 1,200 cars normally go through the drive-through on a good day, that 6-seconds per car adds up to 2-hours of transactions lost in a day! Yes, small stuff can really add up to a big result!
Sweat the small stuff before it’s too late!
I’ve seen marriages end because of a few small things that were never addressed. I’ve seen businesses fail because of small things that were never caught or changed. I’ve seen diets fail because of small bites and nibbles that went unnoticed. Maybe it’s time for you to sweat the small stuff! Maybe your dreams and goals have been sabotaged by the small stuff you are not tending to. Yes, some things may only be a distraction, but the only way to know is to take an inventory.
In The Journey Training, people become aware of some of that small stuff that they didn’t even know was there! Many choose to change some of those things, and we’ve seen BIG results from those small changes, including reconciled marriages, weight-loss, and even increased income! What small stuff are you not aware of that might be holding you back? Why not give The Journey Training a chance to help you begin to sweat the small stuff and keep you from having to sweat the big stuff?!
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“What are you afraid of anyway? ”Let’s face it. We’re all afraid of something. Thunderstorms, snakes, heights, darkness, public speaking – or maybe being alone or taking on a new challenge; whatever it is, fear is fear and we all deal with it at one time or another. Whether we realize it or not, fear often times is a big factor in our lives.
But what exactly is fear? If you break it down, fear can be described simply as:
False
Education
Appearing
Real
Fear from perceptions
My fears may not necessarily be like your fears, but they are no less real. I personally find clowns to be delightful and funny, but have a friend who cowers in fear at even the mention of them. While I don’t believe she will ever encounter an evil clown who intends to do her harm, her perception of clowns prevents her from seeing them any other way.
Is her fear real? Yes, it certainly is.
Fear from experience
A person very close to me had an automobile accident recently and had to get past the fear of being behind the wheel again. The fear of having another accident was very real, but if they hadn’t worked through the fear, they would have been left with no way to get to work and provide for their family. Fear can be so powerful that it can impede your ability to even do some of life’s necessary functions. You can literally become a slave to fear.
Bondage from fear
It seems at times that there is no way to avoid becoming prey to the spirit of fear. Fear is a very powerful emotion and succumbing to it can be very easy. On the other hand, overcoming fear doesn’t seem to be as easy as falling victim to it. Sure, fear exists; otherwise, courage wouldn’t exist. But far too often our fear can be magnetized into something much bigger, causing us to hesitate, or even turn and run! The good news is that much of the time, a fear is a nothing more than a lie from the enemy. You can overcome it and you can break free from it.
“Feel the fear, move through it, do it anyway” – Jillian Michaels
The Journey Training can give you the tools you need to overcome fear that is hindering you from living the life you desire and deserve. Each person that has attended The Journey Training has had to overcome some fear that they had in their lives. Whether it was a fear in the past, a fear of the future, or even a fear of change. Signing up for the Training may have been the first step through fear for many.
Living a life free from fear is possible. How do I know? Because I was once wounded by fear and let it hinder me from living life fully. And sometimes, I just have to look in the mirror and say “What are you afraid of anyway?” Maybe you should let The Journey Training show you how to get the tools to identify and overcome fear. Life lived without being slave to the spirit of fear is a good life indeed.
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