The 3 C’s of Health – A Deeper Look at Your Commitment

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Most people see marriage as a big commitment and will take the requisite time and needed steps to see it through. Others commit more deeply to a professional partnership or a spiritual path. But fewer still approach health as a commitment and a practice that strengthens and develops over the course of a lifetime.

Commitment is the first of my 3 C’s, the mental attitudes I believe we need seize in order to stay focused on our path of health and wellbeing. These 3 C’s are:

1. Commitment
2. Conviction, and
3. Composure

A big focus for me in the last three months has been on my agreement with myself (and my old friend, Meg) to do yoga every day for 90 days. As those 90 days come to a conclusion on February 27, 2010, I’ve had to come back again to this concept of commitment.

For me, it was also a bit scary to commit so much time and energy into a daily practice: My pattern so far in life has been to give quick bursts of 100 percent commitment, and then burn out and pull out 100 percent.

It admittedly was a challenge to “just keep going” even if I wasn’t at 100 percent (or 80 or 50… or sometimes even 10 percent!). But since my dedication to my health is #1 priority for me, I was able to stay solid with the commitment I made, all the way through.

Crashing and Burning on the Path of Health

How many times have you joined a gym, started dance classes, began a meditation practice, or started a diet and then gradually stopped doing it?

It could be because the practice or diet itself wasn’t the right practice for you. I sometimes wonder if I would have had the same outcome and enthusiasm for Yoga90 if I hadn’t stumbled upon a certain yoga tradition early on in the challenge. So finding the right exercise, the right diet, or the right spiritual practice for YOU is key.

But there’s also the commitment-factor. How committed…really… are you to your health? And WHY are you so committed? WHY do you want to be healthy?

I encourage students in my programs to make what I call a “Health Contract” with themselves. Not just before starting a program, but as a sacred document to call upon throughout their lives that reminds them of WHY they are doing this. These contracts are usually quite detailed, with their own personal “stamp”.

A contract like this can be pulled out again and again as we hit stumbling blocks or walls, or find ourselves knocked down altogether and back into old patterns.

With the power of commitment, and a reminder of WHY we’ve committed in the first place, the ‘crash and burn’ factor is greatly diminished. We still make mistakes and we still have to start over, but at each of these low times, we start to come out with more grace, and a little more confidence in our ability to just keep going.

This is the essence of commitment: to just keep going even if you (or the relationship, or the diet, or the practice…) isn’t perfect. We have all the time in the world to become better, stronger people, and starting where we are right now is good enough.

Your Personal Health Contract

Take some time to write up your own Personal Health Contract. Here are some questions to get you started:

1. Why do you want to be healthy? What are the three main reasons you want this the most in your life?
2. Why do you want these things? What is it about these three reasons that are so desirous for you?
3. What are your most nagging or worrisome health concerns and symptoms?
4. Envision yourself free of these symptoms. Are there things that you would do or have if you were symptom-free that you don’t do or have right now? What are these things?
5. Envision yourself doing and having these things. What would you look like and how would you feel doing and having these things? Get a real physical sense of this in the body and write down your responses.

I welcome your comments below – What are the three main reasons YOU want to be healthy?