Should You 'Level Up Your Commitment' or 'Reduce Your Expectations'?

Hey guys, what's up? And welcome to today's video. So today we're going to be talking about whether you should level up your commitment or whether you should reduce your expectations. Now, of course, this is in relation to trying to achieve your goals. Now, often on that journey or on the path when we're trying to reach our goals, and of course when we're talking goals, we mean in any domain of life, we could be talking our body, our being, our balance, or our business, it doesn't matter which domain it is that we're looking to level up in, we're going to have times where we struggle or face obstacles and, and situations that we don't enjoy. They feel pressured, they feel obligated, and we're often going to have times where we contemplate whether we should continue or not. Do I need to change my path? Do I need to do something different? Do I need to just give up on my hopes and dreams? And so on. And of course, it's a tricky place to be. And in reality, we're always given this option or this choice when we reach those points. It's a case of, well, do I need to level up the commitment that I'm showing up with, or do I actually need to reduce my expectations? Have I set my, my goals or my, my dreams too high for what I'm currently able to achieve? Now, of course, this is one of those double-edged swords because for some people it's going to be a case of, yeah, well, you do need to level up your commitment. You're clearly just not showing up enough. So therefore you need to do more. And then other times, of course, we're going to see the flip where it's like, well, actually, why don't you just reduce your expectations? Maybe your expectation is so high that it's completely unrealistic and therefore literally impossible for you to find happiness through this means, because that is an impossible outcome for you to have. Now, of course, we need to be willing to be brutally honest with ourselves when we meet these challenges and these struggles. Because that is going to give us the best information or insight as to whether we are in a position where we now need to level up or whether we need to reduce those expectations. So for example, with myself, I used to do this a lot in my business. Now I've spoken to you guys about this in the past where I struggle with committing to being consistent with social media engagement. Luckily, the past few months I've gotten a lot better. I'm, I'm now able to do it, go live every day and so on. And I'm starting to find a rhythm and a groove with it and starting to enjoy it far more. But for literally 10 years, maybe even more, I have resisted, resisted, resisted. And I've always done a little bit here and there, but I've never been ruthlessly committed to it. I've never been in the flow where I found a groove and, and found a position where I could come at it and enjoy it and so on. Now When I sort of looked at, well, where do I want to go? Here's the point I want to reach in my business and therefore use that to accelerate me into the life I want. What are the things that are required of me? And one of those things is regular or at least consistent social media engagement, social media content production and so on. Now, it's not the only way to do it, but it's one of the best ways to get the particular outcome that I want. I want to be better at public speaking and things like that. And having the confidence to go live or jump up on stage and just present or teach or train and so on. And I've done all that kind of stuff in the past to a degree and on different levels. I've been teaching martial arts for years and teaching at seminars and, and those types of things. But there's still always been this block like, oh, don't go live. What if you fuck up? What if you make a mistake? And so on. But when I got honest with myself about, well, where do I actually want to go? Versus now what do I need to do in relation to that? For me, it was clear: you need to level the fuck up. You've got to level up your commitment and go all in on this thing, or stop obligating yourself and find a new way. Now, as I already kind of had the skill set and had the technology I needed to do so, it just made sense for me to just go all in, start going live, start producing content, start helping people more and more in the online space. Because you're looking to move your business online. Now, of course, I've been moving it online for quite a while, been working with people online, um, for actually about 8 years now, but never at the capacity that I wanted to because I've been running my own gym and so on. But now I'm eventually letting that go, um, over the course of the next sort of 6 months or so, and we'll be pushing online only. But that's taken time. But at the same time, I knew that For me, in this particular scenario, I had to level up my commitment. Now, if it was a case of, well, no, I want this particular goal, I'm completely unwilling to do this particular version of leveling up, I would be faced with an option of, okay, well, now you either need to find an alternate method that's going to be just as effective that you're able to engage in consistently, or maybe you do need to lower your level of expectation because if you're not willing to do the things necessary, well, then you can't have that particular outcome. And now we have to be careful because sometimes it's a case of we know that we need to level up and do more in order to have the outcome. But on the flip, sometimes we sit here in this pocket of entitlement and believe that we're deserving of it or worthy of it regardless of whether we put the work in or not. Oh, well, so-and-so has it, so therefore I should be able to have it. Oh, well, this person has the thing I want, so why can't I have it too? And the catch is quite often we don't see the background work that had to go in that that person had to put in. In order to achieve that particular outcome. Often we assume that they were just gifted it or granted it, or, oh well, that's, you know, they're just, they're different to me. They're, for those kinds of people, or for him or for her, that's just normal, that's natural. But for me, it's, it's much harder, and so on. But what we often find when we hear the truth of their own story and their own journey is often these things were challenging and difficult for them too, and they had to sacrifice and give up things and commit and spend more time and so on. In order to get that particular outcome. So, as long as we're not coming at the goal that we want with a sense of entitlement, it's often much easier to identify, well, do I need to lower my expectations or do I need to level up? Now, the truth is, for most of us, leveling up is always or almost always going to be the best option to get you the outcome that you want, because quite often it's a case of, well, here's the outcome you desire. If you reduce your expectation, well, now that particular desired outcome is likely not possible anymore. And if part of your life's goal or your purpose, or even just you becoming a happier version of yourself and feeling fulfilled in life, if it requires you having that particular outcome, reducing your expectation is not going to work. Because although you now won't have the stress, the strain, the struggle of trying to strive and achieve that thing, You're now just going to have a complete sense of unfulfillment. You're going to resent yourself for giving up on your goal, for giving up on yourself and letting yourself down and so on. So for most of us, the truth is the default should be level up your commitment because it's very rare, if ever, that you're really going to regret leveling up your commitment and therefore achieving more. It's very rare. The only thing that I ever see or hear of that people may regret is, for example, time spent with kids or time spent with their partner or their family whilst they went all in on this particular thing to achieve a goal. Oh, maybe if I did it again, I would find ways to both achieve the goal but also spend more time doing some other things that I would have enjoyed or I feel I missed out on. But if you can find a way to do all of those things at the same time, well, then you don't have to worry about missing out on anything and you can level up your commitment serve all those current emotional needs as well as reaching that goal and serving your future emotional needs as well. So I guess my question for you guys now is a case of, well, where in your life do you know that you need to level up? Is it in your health and with your body? Do you know you need to level up there in terms of the things that you're engaging in day to day? Now, of course, we've got Christmas coming up. Some of you might be thinking, I am planning to level up shit. I'm just going to have fun. And that's absolutely cool and awesome and fine. But maybe post-Christmas, once you roll into the new year, maybe you do need to level up. So is it in your body? Is it in your business, in your money game, or in your profession? Do you know you need to level up there so that you can build a better life financially and so on? Do you need to level up your relationships? Or maybe is it you? Or maybe you need to find what we would call maybe a sense of purpose or something that you can kind of strive and drive towards in the new year. For many of us, we have this sort of missing piece of the puzzle, which is in the being domain. It's like, yeah, I'm here and I'm doing stuff, but I don't really know why. None of it is really fulfilling me. I don't feel like I'm connected to any greater sense of purpose or any greater sense of vision for myself. And sometimes that's where we need to focus. And then that brings the rest of our domains, so the, the body, the balance, and the business into focus. It's like, all right, well, in order to achieve this, this fulfillment in my being domain, If I level up the other areas, that will help me. That will give me a sense of purpose to move and strive towards. So I'll leave you with that today, guys. Of course, I hope you all have a great Christmas and you're having lots of fun and so on so far. Most of you now are obviously off of work and so on as it's Christmas Day tomorrow. So hope you're all having fun. Hope you all have a great time. And if you have any questions, as always, drop them in the comments below. And if you want to learn more about what it is we do here, check us out at strongerthanlife.com and you'll find all the information that you need there. Thanks for watching, people, and I look forward to chatting with you in my next video. Take it easy.