Why lock yourself in unnecessarily?

​

My new Vietnamese friends sometimes ask me, “How long will you live in Da Nang?”

 

My answer is, “I will live in Da Nang somewhere between ‘indefinitely’ and ‘forever’.”

I answer this way to express how strongly I feel about the possibility of living in Da Nang forever. However, I see no value in committing myself to live here forever and much value in leaving the decision open-ended.
 

 

Will you be a life coach forever? (so far this has been my career for 37 years)

Sometimes people ask me, “Will you be a life coach forever?”
 

My answer is, “Life coaching is the perfect career for me. But if I wake up tomorrow and realize that another career provides more opportunities for me to experience a connection with others, interpersonal adventure, playfulness, innocence, and romance (my five life inspirations),
I will turn on a dime and change my career tomorrow.”

Sometimes it is necessary and powerful to lock ourselves in to get a specific result.

​

​

Why do we lock ourselves in unnecessarily?

​

But often, when we lock ourselves in (either implicitly or explicitly), our primary motive is to try to feel safe and comfortable where there is no real safety. In such situations, our commitments stifle our lives and create much more suffering for us and others than is necessary.

 

 

This is not indecisiveness

Do not confuse what I am suggesting with indecisiveness, in which we avoid making a choice among two or more necessary alternatives because we are unwilling to face the fear that accompanies whatever choice we might make.

I am talking about the possibility of making a courageous choice not to lock ourselves in, not to unnecessarily commit ourselves, when the only advantage in commitment is avoiding the fear of leaving things open-ended and where the ultimate costs of locking ourselves in could be enormous.

 

 

Asking the questions

Ask yourself, “Am I currently committing to a project or relationship in a way that disempowers me?”

Ask yourself, “Do I have a pattern of locking myself in because I have been unwilling to choose the courage to say, ‘No, I will not,’ either to myself or to others?”