Pre-commitment

One of my favourite words is 'pre-commitment' and a practice I’m really keen to continue to define, discover and develop in my own unique context.

Pre-commitment comes up as a key component in the book ‘Will Power’ by Baumeister and Tierney.

Although a bit hardcore check this!

“The essence of this strategy is to lock yourself into a virtuous path. You recognize that you’ll face terrible temptations to stray from the path, and that your willpower will weaken. So you make it impossible…to leave the path.”

Is there a pre-commitment strategy you could set up?

One of the ways I do this is to schedule a time to meet someone at a set time, place and date in advance for a set activity and for a set duration of time + pack everything I need the night before.

I precommit.

Another way I used to do this was to be ready to take the 6.45 pm university shuttle so I could sign in at the library. Once there, there was no turning back. I was now on campus with little distractions and more likelihood of doing what I needed to do…study.

Go all in.

Precommit.

With ARETE,

Sean