Committed Friends

Hi guys. My name is Donnie Rouse and you are listening to the podcast One Life Committed Friends. When do you find it easier to take action? Is it when you've committed to yourself or when you've committed to others? Said differently, when you have the accountability of others to make sure that you follow through on that action. Depending on what the situation is, you might find you may flip from one side to the other. I was in Miami, Florida, staying at one of the hostels and being situated in Miami, one of the easiest things you can do is you can hop over to any of the islands near southern Florida or you can even take a trip to South America, Mexico, anywhere. But with this Covid time, a lot of the places were kind of restricted as to where you can go. Talking with a couple guys, we started to brainstorm, we started to inspire and like light that flame of desire in each of us. We're talking about what other places we can travel that were outside of the United States. I like to, I started getting inspired. I was like, oh, well, let's go, let's book a trip to Puerto Rico. If we do it right now, I'll book it right now. The two gentlemen that I had spoken to, they were starting to get really excited about. They're like, alright, yeah, let's book this trip, let's do it. So a few days had passed and I thought about booking it. I had email, I was texting them saying, hey, when are we gonna book the trip? Let's do it. And then like, I just kind of like put it off. Shortly after, one of the gentlemen texted me, my friend Greg, he said, hey, we just booked a trip and we're going to be going flying into San Juan. This is the flight we got. Are you coming? I thought about, I'm like, oh my God. Well, am I going to go to, am I going to take this trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico? One of the identities I have for myself is to be a globetrotter. As a world traveler, I travel to take two major trips a year. I would take a month in like the beginning of winter and then a month just before spring, and I would travel all around. And in prior podcasts I had mentioned the psychology behind it. When I travel that in November, in about seven, eight months or something goes by. And when I booked that trip, there's always a little bit of hesitancy in booking the trip. But then once I booked that trip, when I booked that next trip in March, I'm booking it with anticipation, I'm excited and there's this forward momentum. But again, then when that lull comes, I find it challenging to take that same action. So, having spent the last year indoors because of COVID restrictions, I made the decision to move down to Miami because I wanted to try something new. I wanted to be in the warmth, but still that was. I consider that United States. And while it is a move, it still feels somewhat safe because the environment, you know, how to get around, you know, the environment. And for me, I don't feel like there's a lot of stretching going on in terms of, you know, going beyond your personal belief systems. And I like new surroundings. Said differently, I like new surroundings because it makes me step out. So as they called me on it, I started thinking, I'm like, oh, my gosh, am I really going to book this? I started to get hesitant sitting in my hostel bed, I was kind of going back and forth, back and forth. And there was a guy who had just come back from Colombia, and he told me, he's like, if you go there, he's like, you have to make sure that you're going to be allowed to come back. You know, there's all these new restrictions going on. And so he placed another's. Another seed of doubt in my mind. So I was like, oh, my God. Well, if I have to stay, if I get quarantined, then I have to stay two weeks there. You know, how am I. I'm still apartment hunting. How am I going to find my apartment? All these things started to swirl in my mind. Not to mention I needed. I. At that point, I think I'd gotten. Actually gotten my COVID test back, But I had to take a COVID test in order to go to Puerto Rico. You know, it. So that's the hassle too, because, well, what if I take the test and it comes back positive? And then if I bought the ticket, then that's a waste of money. So I had to wait until the test. There was all these things kind of playing on one another. But long story short, it was the evening before that I booked my ticket because my friends were. I had committed. Like when we were outside at this hostel. It was my decision. Like, I sparked the whole conversation. I inspired the trip. So there was no way for me to back out As a result of having that accountability, that feeling accountable to them. I booked a trip. But even the day. But like the night I booked the trip, I told them, I said, hey, listen, I don't know what the restrictions are. I'm gonna book the trip now. And, you know, I'LL meet, come with you. I'll go to the airport and, and, you know, I'll decide whether or not I'm going to take the trip. You know, I was still kind of leaving myself a door, a way of getting out. The morning comes and I told, I text him, say, listen, I'm just, I'm just, I'm coming to your hostel. Then we'll take a cab together because we, I end up changing hostels the night, the last night. So as I was up there, there was this excitement, kind of this energy in going to the airport and knowing that we were going to be taking a trip to another country. And so I was like, okay. So then I started getting the momentum, then I started getting exciting because now I had movement in the direction where I was going. Like I was moving towards Puerto Rico. We end up going into the airport and, you know, going through everything. We get on the plane, and as we go up in the plane, a tear came down my eye. It reminded me of everything I love about travel, the experiences, the new seeing this beautiful world that we live in. And I was so happy that I had booked that trip and then looked back, well, how can I. Why was I even thinking about canceling it? And it was all because of fear of the unknown. I'll give you one more quick story that's a little bit faster. I was in Krabi Town, or I think it was Krabi, Thailand. And I hadn't, I just gotten my scuba certification. I hadn't really done many dives outside of that certification. So while I was in Krabi, I go, well, I heard the scuba diving is amazing here, Let me, let me book a scuba diving trip. I booked the trip and had to go out the following morning. Being that I hadn't done any dives in the last year, I would have to do the research or like, the, like the life skills. Like when you have to go in, you have to take off your mask, you have to put it back on, blow out the bubbles and display the, you know, like take your, your air, your, your ventilator out and they got to put it back in your mouth, all these things just to make sure that if something were to happen in the water that you would be okay, you would know how to, to respond. The night before I was gonna do the dive, I started freaking out. I was gonna, what if something happens? What if, you know, I don't get the mask on? What if I, you know, yeah, what if I can't get it on? What if I drown? You know, like it always, it always escalates. You start at very, very small and all of a sudden it ends, it ends with death. And I was thinking about that and I woke up with anxiety because I'm like, oh my God, should I be doing this? Or should I just turn away? And I'm telling you this story now because it relates to what I just told you about booking this trip to Puerto Rico. Though completely different context, the same motions were what was guiding my decision. So I was like, all right. And I decided just to go down there. I went down there and we end up going, you know, we go pretty 15ft in the water. I'm like, all right, well here we are. I have to get it right because when you're, when you commit to that decision when you're down there, you know that there's no messing up, right? You got it. You got to. I mean, nothing would happen. I had a, I had a dive master with me, so nothing was going to happen. But in my mind, like when you're down there, right, 15 under, I have to take off my mask, I have to do all these, all these skills. I knew like once I was down there, I had to perform them, right? I couldn't fumble up and like jump up above the water and then clear my mask because I was 15ft down. It just wasn't going to happen. But when I committed to it, when I went down there, I knew that I had to take the action. And there I was accountable to myself. With the first example I gave about booking the trip to Puerto Rico, I had my friends to hold me accountable. I mean, they wouldn't have cared one way or the other if I went. But I felt I was accountable because I was the one who inspired the trip. And why do I tell you this? I tell you this because the best thing, or if we want to make momentum, if we want to make strides in our own life, the best thing we could do is to get leverage on ourselves. And part of that leverage could come from making a financial investment on say, booking a trip non refundable. So this way you know that the loss of that money is going to be, is greater pain than not doing it at all. Because I promise you, if you do it, the experience is going to be awesome, you're going to enjoy it and, and you're gonna then tell all your friends about how good of a time you had. And the other thing is having other people hold you accountable. I know. I don't like letting people down, right. Especially if it's something that I initiated. I don't like letting people down. So having the feeling of being accountable to other people will help also put you into action. It's kind of like if you make a decision to do something and then you tell all of your friends, all of your family, because you know they're gonna be, hey, Donnie, how'd it go with that podcast? If I didn't take any action on that podcast, I'm like, well, yeah, I'm still kind of doing it. And the pain of having to explain that to somebody is actually one of the things that could also push you forward. Then once you do it, you feel really great about it and you're happy you did it anyways. So look for ways on a sheet of paper. Let's do a little assignment. What is one thing that you want to do that you haven't taken action on? Write it down. And very simply, I want you to just think of three different ways. What are three? You know what, let's make it, let's simplify. Let's do two different ways. What is one way that you could hold yourself accountable? One way of holding yourself accountable is thinking about the beliefs, the identities you have for yourself. So holding the identity that like, you know what? I never turned back on a decision I've made is one thing that would push me forward. Because then, like, there's more pain, there's more internal pain because I'm like, well, listen, I'm not being true to who I am. And what are the externals? Well, you know what, let's go back to three. Who can you bring on or who can you have hold you accountable? Maybe if it's a trip you're booking, maybe it's having that trip booked with a couple other people. So they booked the trip and now they're making sure that you book the trip. You feel like you have to do it because they've already committed, so now you have to do it. Lastly, maybe it's something you could do financially, something where there's a resource involved, maybe your time, maybe it's money that by doing it non refundable, where you commit, where there's no point in turning back, you know, you have to move forward with it. Maybe if you want to start a podcast, right, maybe it's signing up for that year of podcasting and a course. So now you're like, all right, well, I'm not going to waste $3,000. Let me just go forward, let me start doing it. And if you could, I'd like you to put one of those, if not all of them. If you could do all of them, that's even more powerful. Put them in place. Take the new action. That's it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you did, please give it a share on your social media. Invite your friends to subscrib to the One Life Podcast with Donny Rouse. And if you enjoy this, you could check out one of my Live youe One Life workshops by visiting D O N N Y r a u s.com and then lastly, if you love delicious coffee, coffee that inspires that moment, that takes that moment and gives you it back in life to say, well, what is it that I really want? Ultimately, coffee is coffee in some way, right? Like I'm a Q grader, so I pride myself on my ability to pick out the best coffees to my ability. But in essence, it's like, well, what is the coffee about? What does it mean for me? Coffee means it's that moment in your day where you get to think about the things you want. You get to give that time to yourself, to just be recognizing that now is the only time you have, that this life is beautiful and this life is for you. That is what you get when you drink my coffee. So you can visit Rouse R A U S Coffee.com, use the discount code One Life and that'll give you 15% off your order. That's all I've got for you guys. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. God bless and I will talk to you again soon.