In this episode, We get real about something we all go through and experience in our daily lives. Moments where we feel like giving up or not following through with our dreams, goals, desires, and commitments in life. Discover how to achieve all the things you have been holding off in your life. No more procrastination or putting things off until tomorrow. You only have so many tomorrows before you run out. Use this tool to finally achieve your goals, dreams, desires, mission, and purpose in life!
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Ep #17: Free Yourself From Struggle
Dirty Kid “Pig Pen” Charlie Brown
Transcript: (Read Time: 21 Minutes)
Siri Shakti: Welcome to the RockStar in Life podcast, where you'll learn the secrets to unleashing your inner RockStar, so you can make the world your stage. What's up RockStars in Life? It's Siri Shakti, and I have my co-host here.
Dr. Dan: Dr. Dan is in the house.
Siri Shakti: Nice.
Dr. Dan: That's right.
Siri Shakti: Well, today, we're going to be talking about, wow, something awesome, something epic that we all have to master and use in our life. We call this commitment, but today's episode is called You Got This.
Dr. Dan: Yup, unless we change it. Then that was completely wrong.
Siri Shakti: Wow, okay.
Dr. Dan: Just keep it.
Siri Shakti: Let's not change it, and go with You Got This.
Dr. Dan: But who's got this? You're saying you. Who are you talking to?
Siri Shakti: Everyone, us, everyone listening. You're funny.
Dr. Dan: Nice, thank you for that. Thank you for that, that I'm funny.
Siri Shakti: You are so funny.
Dr. Dan: I'm very committed to being funny.
Siri Shakti: Ye hey.
Dr. Dan: Yes, and I should just be committed.
Siri Shakti: Okay. Well, I wanted to talk about this, and this is something that we have discussed before. Which episode was it that we talked about it?
Dr. Dan: Episode number five, Why Motivation Sucks.
Siri Shakti: Yes, but I know for myself, this week specifically, this was something that I know for you as well for you, Dan-
Dr. Dan: No way. I'm perfect. I never have commitment issues or any sorts.
Siri Shakti: … that we were both dealing with this head on. It's like, “Okay,” and I know all of you listening, you've been through this before. You have things that you know you have to be committed to, things that you know you need to be doing, but every part of your being, every part of your brain power at that moment is saying, “I don't want to do it.”
Dr. Dan: Yup, or, “I'll do it tomorrow or the next day, or the next day.”
Siri Shakti: Yes, you start to have that feeling like, “You know what, I give up. I'm just not going to do this,” or like you were saying, “I'll do it tomorrow.”
Dr. Dan: Well, that's the beauty of commitment. That's the difference between commitment and motivation, because motivation is like that caffeine. It's not going to hold you over for the rest of your life, right?
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: You can't stay caffeinated 24 hours seven days a week. At some point, you're going to crash, and you need to sleep. The commitment is what takes over. That's the beauty of it as well is that either there's plenty of things that I was supposed to do or I had committed to do, and I didn't do them, but the beauty of commitment is there is no end time. It's not like, “Oh well, if you don't get it done by then, then there is no hope for you, right?” You say like, “I'm going to get in shape. Then you say, “I'm committed to working out,” and then you miss three days. It doesn't mean like you've ruined everything, and now you should just give up and lay in bed, and be one of those people that can't get out of bed without a … What are those called, those cranes?
Siri Shakti: A crane?
Dr. Dan: A crane, [inaudible 00:03:18] remove the doors to get you out of the house.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, we don't want to get to that point.
Dr. Dan: Correct.
Siri Shakti: What we want to do here is not only do we want to relate to you that we totally understand what it's like to get to that point, because we all go through this. I mean, that's just … anything that you want to create, anything that you want to build in your life, you're going to have these moments that come up, and they're going to feel intense. It's going to feel like I know for myself, I had a moment just yesterday, where I was like, “That's it. I'm not going to do this.” I had to have a little chat with myself, and remind myself why I decided to commit. I'm not going to say what it is, but commit to this particular thing in my life.
Dr. Dan: It was taking showers. You're like, “I'm not going to take a shower. I give up. I'm just going to be smelly for the rest of my life.” What about the Charlie Brown? What was that kid's name that was always dirty?
Siri Shakti: Oh shoot.
Dr. Dan: We'll just call him dirty Charlie Brown boy.
Siri Shakti: Dirty Charlie Brown boy.
Dirty Kid “Pig Pen” Charlie Brown
Dr. Dan: That's what you are committed to, right?
Siri Shakti: You know what, I'm kicking you out the show. Fine, I'm going to be honest with our listeners of what it was I was struggling with, okay?
Dr. Dan: Oh no, don't do it.
Siri Shakti: Don't do it. No. Okay, it was actually this show, because I love us creating this podcast show, and when we sit down to do it, I'm like, “I love creating it,” but just like the rest of you, I have a very full life. We have very full lives. I'm a homeschool mom. I have kids' activities to drive them to. Sometimes, I feel like I'm an Uber. I'm like, “I should be getting paid for this.”
Dr. Dan: Or you also have on the weekends, because we de this on Sundays. We do the recording most of the time on Sundays, and because Mayleena has dance classes on Saturday and through the whole week, and then on Sundays, occasionally, competition season.
Siri Shakti: Seasons.
Dr. Dan: I sound like Sean Connery, Sherry Sean.
Siri Shakti: Is that what you were going for?
Dr. Dan: Yes, that's what I was going for. We'll go with that. I mean, there's plenty of Sundays and Saturdays that we just don't have … we can't do anything, right? It's like we can't do a family thing. We can't go to the beach like we normally have, so we've had to give up quite a few Sundays in order to produce this show.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Well, I know two weeks ago, my daughter had a competition Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I was there all day long.
Dr. Dan: Your daughter was?
Siri Shakti: Just mine.
Dr. Dan: Oh okay, got it.
Siri Shakti: Not yours.
Dr. Dan: Just yours, got it.
Siri Shakti: Our daughter. I got home at 7:00 Sunday night. I was so tired, but this is our commitment. Our commitment is creating this for all of you, for ourselves, for the world, and so no matter how tired I was, I had to reach down into my commitment, and remember what we've learned and what we talked about in that other episode is that commitment, it's bigger than any emotion. When you really lock yourself into any emotion that you're feeling, it won't waver you. I mean, you may feel it, but it's not going to hold you back from following through. That's what I've locked myself into, and so we're not giving up.
Dr. Dan: It's not a sprint. What do they say? It's not a sprint. It's a …
Siri Shakti: It's a long distance.
Dr. Dan: I was going to say a long run. It's like a long run.
Siri Shakti: Oh, that's basically what …
Dr. Dan: Yeah. It's a marathon, right? It's what I was about to say. It's a marathon.
Siri Shakti: That's fair.
Dr. Dan: To walkathon, so you can jog. You can walk. There's going to be times that you jog. There are going to be times that you might sprint, and there are going to be times that you'll need to rest, and take a nap. For myself, I know everybody works a little different, but for myself, I'll take some times, like, a week, and just do very little in that week. Sometimes in the past, I wouldn't do anything. I would just in the past, I remember years ago when I was running my own business my myself, and I wasn't working with anybody else, I remember I would take two weeks off, sometimes even longer than that, I think, and I would just watch marathons of shows and stuff, not even marathons, but what would be like a marathon.
Dr. Dan: I would watch every episode, every season of the show I've never watched. One of them was Battlestar Galactica, which is like there was heca seasons. I watch them all at once.
Siri Shakti: Were you locked into your commitment to watch all of those episodes?
Dr. Dan: No, that was my rest. That was me resting, and then finally, I was like, “Okay, I've had enough of this.” Then I just went full force. I did two weeks of intense creation mode. Again, I was by myself. I had nobody to bounce ideas off or anything like that with. It was such a unique industry that there wasn't a lot of people doing it, and because of that, I didn't really have anybody to bounce off ideas. I was creating courses online, and here is, what do they call it, the robb. If I was to collaborate, or not collaborate, but to talk to somebody else and bounce ideas off of, they were my competition.
Dr. Dan: The head of Under Armour wouldn't call the head of Nike, and just be like, “Hey, I'm thinking of some design ideas, and you know, creating this other market.” It would put you out of business, or it would take money out of your hands, but what do you think I should do? No way. Keep that secret. Back then, it was pretty tough for me to get into the good space, but the commitment was there, and because the commitment was there, I never quit. All I did was take a rest when I needed it, right?
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: You obviously have to be self-aware, and know that, “Okay, I'm not going to rest for two years.” We've known people like that, where they're just like … We've had their significant others or spouses, like, complain like, “All they do is sleep on the couch, and not do anything. And it's been like a year.” That's a little different. I'm talking about a couple days, a week, maybe two at the most.
Siri Shakti: Something else that just came to mind as you were talking about this is you need to be flexible with your commitments as well, with your goals, and things that you want to create. I'm talking about with anything. I mean, we're talking it could be in business. It could be in fitness. It could be family goals, family dynamics, things that you want to create within your home. You need to be flexible with yourself, and what came to mind is I know I've talked before a little bit about what I went through this year. Thankfully, I'm doing so much better, but I was dealing with vision issues. I didn't know what was going on, and it was very scary. Me being a homeschool parent, my commitment was doing homeschool with our children.
Siri Shakti: Normally, I'm on top of that. Normally, I make sure we do it all the time. I had to tell you, this year, I had many days where I just couldn't do it. I had to rest. Either I just took a break or I gave the kids things they could do on their own, or I just do what I could, but part of my commitment was we are going to achieve certain goals this year. Well now, here we are almost at the end of the school season. Typically, we would take summers off, but I decided because our kids had so much time off this year, this school year, we're just going to the summer, so I'm going to catch up. You see, I haven't failed in my commitment. I did what I could, and now that I'm stronger, I'm putting a little more of the, what's the word, throttle on, the gas, and we're going to continue to the summer.
Dr. Dan: Put in the pedal to the metal.
Siri Shakti: Pedal to the metal, yeah. That's what I'm talking about with being flexible. Sometimes, life circumstances happen.
Dr. Dan: Circumcisions.
Siri Shakti: No, I wasn't going there. I knew you were going to say that. I know you so well.
Dr. Dan: Nice.
Siri Shakti: No, I wasn't saying that. Circumstances happen in life.
Dr. Dan: Got it.
Siri Shakti: You need to be mindful of that, and be patient with yourself. I know you said this many times before, Dan, is going with the flow, right?
Dr. Dan: Yeah, be the water, the water with the rock if you have heard that before. It's like a water doesn't try and shove a rock out of the way. It just flows around it.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: Over time, it will wear down that rock. That's why you'll see if you go to a little river, or a creek, or something like that, that is flowing water. You'll notice that the rock's really smooth. Over time, it just wears it down.
Siri Shakti: I know one thing that our teacher Guru Singh would say all the time, and I love this now. I repeat all the time is you do what you can, and you be happy about that. You celebrate what you've done. I think, that's a big part of it is when you're working towards any goal or any commitment is celebrate the stepping stones of what it is that you're working on.
Dr. Dan: Yes, celebrate all your wins.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: No matter how big or how small they are, and that's super important. I mean, it can be just giving yourself a pat in the back, sharing to somebody that support of, and let them know what you accomplished.
Siri Shakti: Like I said, we're talking about any type of goal. Let's say you have this big goal, like, you want to create your own business. That's a very big important goal. I'm talking about even if you did … Let's say tomorrow, you got started. You did one small thing moving yourself forward in that, that is something to be celebrated.
Dr. Dan: If you did some research or something like that, like, “Okay, what are the three things that I'm good at, or what are the three things that I'm interested in?” You might be further along in your idea, or you might not be. For sure.
Siri Shakti: I mean, I know for myself, I had a goal, and I had made this a commitment, because I being a stay-at-home mom and a homeschool parent, I make three meals a day for my family. I remember I was telling that to one of the dance moms that I know. Her kids go to public school, and so she's like, “You make three meals a day for your family? Oh my God, how do you do that?” It's funny, because I've done it so long. I hadn't really even thought about it. It's just something that I do.
Dr. Dan: She also makes snacks sometimes too, some desserts.
Siri Shakti: Snacks, desserts.
Dr. Dan: And your husband works from home, so you got to make him breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and bring him snacks as well, so yes.
Siri Shakti: I'm like a full-time chef too. Yes, I didn't even know. I'm a chef now.
Dr. Dan: You do it all.
Siri Shakti: But one thing that I wanted to implement into this is I had spent years feeling almost resentful that I had to make all these meals. I remember, there'd be nights where I'm like so irritated making dinner. I'm like, “I don't want to make food.” About a year, maybe a year-and-a-half ago, I made a commitment for myself that I was going to start putting the effort into enjoying the actual act of cooking for my family. Then I was going to start looking for new recipes, and believe me, I've picked a few that I make all the time. That's just like the easiest way.
Dr. Dan: They're your go-to.
Siri Shakti: My go-to recipes, yes, but it was such a journey, because now, I pretty much, I'd say 99% of the time, genuinely really enjoying making meals. Something that I really believe in is that the energy that the person puts into the food is what the person is going to experience. I know this is part of the Buddhist tradition. This is the first time I actually heard about it, that within the Buddhist temples, it's the most enlightened Buddhist that creates the actual meals, because what thy put into the food is what you put into your belly. It's what you ingest into your spirit. I was thinking, I remember after I heard that, I'm like, “”Okay, I'm irritated every time I make dinner,” and I'm giving that irritated food to my family. I didn't want do that anymore.
Dr. Dan: That's why I always feel irritated.
Siri Shakti: No.
Dr. Dan: I thought it's because you're slowly poisoning me.
Siri Shakti: No.
Dr. Dan: I thought it was.
Siri Shakti: I mean, I took it so far that I remember just a few days ago, my son was acting up so much. Oh my gosh, my nine-year-old, he was pissing me off so much. I yelled at him. I was so mad the whole time I was making dinner. I almost finished the whole meal, and I thought I was really angry the whole time I made that food. I looked at the food. I actually threw it out, because I did not want to give you guys that. I didn't want to I've my family angry food. I ended up going and getting takeout instead. I'm really locked into my commitment now.
Dr. Dan: Very cool. This goes for anything that you want to do. I mean, you had mentioned starting a business or a side project, or anything like that. It could be something that financially, non-financially. It could be a hobby, something you've always wanted to do. It could be just getting in shape, be mere active, something as simple as doing more walks. I know that's something that I had challenges with myself, and make commitment on as well. Spending more time with your kids or your loved ones, I mean, it could be anything from wanting to be an actor or an actress, or joining the circus. I mean, it could wanting to write a book, which is something I committed to many years ago to doing. I did too. I wrote two books.
Dr. Dan: This is somebody who flunked out of English class, that up until writing a book in my … Was it my late 20s or early 30s?
Siri Shakti: Early 30s, I think.
Dr. Dan: Early 30s, prior to that, I really didn't know where the coma was really supposed to go. I could guess sometimes, but I'm sure I got it wrong at least half of the times.
Siri Shakti: I have some worksheets that you could work on if you need to.
Dr. Dan: Oh, very cool. I pretty much got it now-
Siri Shakti: Okay good.
Dr. Dan: … but sometimes, I confirm my work by just … I use Grammarly, and sometimes, I'll Google a sentence, and see what somebody else wrote. That reminds me of that, which is beautiful. Again, starting a business, it could be maybe you always wanted to start a podcast like we did.
Siri Shakti: That's right.
Dr. Dan: I mean, this isn't the first one we did. Actually, we did our first one in 2006 or 2007. I think, it's 2007, somewhere around there. We did that for a while, and then we had kids. Well, we already had two children. We had Bodhi III, so we took a little break, but we were committed. Here we are again. What is that like 10 years later, eight, nine years later something like that depending on when it was that we were doing it?
Siri Shakti: Almost, yeah, about that.
Dr. Dan: Again, it's not a sprint, because by no means are you going to sit there and go, “Oh well.” Some people would say, “Oh, yeah, you guy used to have a podcast, and you quit.” Well now, we didn't quit, because we're doing it.
Siri Shakti: We just put it on pause.
Dr. Dan: We took a very long break, right? We raised some children, and we continue to do so.
Siri Shakti: Yes. It was a worthy cause.
Dr. Dan: Exactly.
Siri Shakti: That's right.
Dr. Dan: Whatever it is you want to do, do it. Just do it. Be committed to it, and take some action towards it, and just keep doing it. If you need to take a break, you need to take a break, but get back to it.
Siri Shakti: Yes. Remember that anything worthy in your life that you want to create, and the thing is when we set our mind to something, you're going to have those moments, have those days where it's like, “Uh, uh, I don't want to do this, you know,” but like I said, lock yourself into your commitment and see it through, because whenever we're creating something in our life, there's going to be times where it takes a little bit of that extra effort, but isn't that the beauty of it, because those things that take that extra effort, those are the things that really give you the juice in your life. Those are the things that are so worthy that give you the greatest rewards in your life as we've experienced, right?
Dr. Dan: Exactly. There was something good that Guru Singh that had told me when I was talking to him about, “Oh, let's have a challenge [inaudible 00:21:26].” There's something that I needed to learn how to do, and it did not appeal to me whatsoever. I was just like, “Man, I don't need to become an expert at this, but I need to understand it. And it's so difficult to learn.” I bought courses on it and everything. It's very technical and analytical. It wasn't something that I normally enjoy or even want to do. It's like going to the dentist. I'd rather go to the dentist than learn that stuff. He told me, he said, “You know, think of it as like giving birth.”
Dr. Dan: Nobody really wants to give birth. Nobody wants to go through labor, right? They want the result. They want what happens after that. You go through labor, so you can have a child, right?
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: That's how you have look at it is if it's something that you're just like, “Man, I really don't want to do this, or I don't want to do that,” well, it's necessary in order for you to have the end result.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, sometimes, you got to push, and sometimes you got to feel that, well, pushback, that pain of it.
Dr. Dan: Just keep moving forward.
Siri Shakti: You keep moving forward.
Dr. Dan: That's your commitment. You don't quit.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, and then you experience what's on the other side of that.
Dr. Dan: You don't quit. You'd be okay with it. You'd be okay with the pauses you need to take to refresh yourself. If it so happens that you take a little too long, it's like, “Okay, now, I need to do it.” I do this still today. I did this week actually, where I'm like, “I need to get this done.” I was like, “Uh.” It was so difficult, so hard. I really felt like was giving labor, and I just wanted to go into the corner of the shower, and run the water, and cry in the corner on the ground. I rock myself back and forth.
Siri Shakti: Sorry.
Dr. Dan: But, that doesn't matter. What matters is that you didn't give up. You didn't quit, and you stay committed, and you kept moving forward, even when you had to take a rest. You had to take a break. You had to do something to fill yourself back up, or to replenish yourself, so you have the energy and the strength to move forward.
Siri Shakti: That's right.
Dr. Dan: Beautiful.
Siri Shakti: Is there anything else you want to share before we get to our RockStar mission?
Dr. Dan: No, I just want to remind everybody to go to rockstarinlife.com to get the links, resources mentioned in this episode. This episode's transcript. Download the free books, training, yoga, meditation, homeschooling advice, and we are adding so much more. Don't forget to go to rockstarinlife.com, and join the RockStar in Life revolution today.
Siri Shakti: Awesome!
Dr. Dan: Today's RockStar mission, if you choose to take it which we hope you will, we believe you will. We believe in you. What we want you to do is to choose three things that you've wanted to do, that you've put off, and you still haven't started or you took a really long break on. It could be a few days, a few weeks, a few months, a few years. It could be a lot of years.
Siri Shakti: A few decades.
Dr. Dan: The last time I thought about this, I was 10 years old, and I'm 80 years old today. It could have been 70 years ago.
Siri Shakti: That's right.
Dr. Dan: It doesn't matter how long ago. It could have been something that you wrote down from the last time when we talked about commitment.
Siri Shakti: It's never too late, never too late.
Dr. Dan: We can add all of those in there. Whatever it is, write down three things that you've been putting off, and commit to doing at least one thing. Write it down. Write down the one thing the one thing that you're going to do right now towards each of those three things. If you have three items down, like, one is I want to write a book, and you haven't started. Well, what's the first step?
Siri Shakti: Write an outline maybe.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, write an outline. Write some ideas.
Siri Shakti: Like a brain dump.
Dr. Dan: Start reaching out. Start looking online, like, “Okay, well, how to write a book?” Look for an expert like I did, so I hired a coach. She taught me how to go through the whole process. She actually had a book on it too on how to write a book. I'm sure there's other ones out there as well. Maybe it's reaching out to a fried that wrote a book. I mean, any of those things, take action. Do one thing for each one of those. If it's because I want to do more walks, if it's daytime right now, go do that walk. If you are at your work, take a break. Go for that walk, or do it during your lunch hour, or if it's night time before bed, go to bed in the morning. Take that walk.
Dr. Dan: Do something. Do something towards each one of your goals. If you want to start a business, write down your business ideas. That's a start. That's the start. That's the first step. Next step, maybe reach out to somebody that started this similar business, or start researching what would it take to start this business, right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah, and I'm going to add to that if you don't mind.
Dr. Dan: Go for it.
Siri Shakti: Two things that have helped me over the years, and I always liked to write this down on my journal, number one, for each of those three things, write down on a piece of paper, and ask yourself this question, “What pleasure would you get, or what would it feel like in your life if you really committed to each of those goals, and to each of those things that you want to create in your life?” What would it feel like? What would it bring to your life? What would that look like?
Dr. Dan: What would it feel like?
Siri Shakti: Yeah, what would it feel like?
Dr. Dan: What would it feel like to have those, not accomplishments, but if it was writing a book, what would it feel like if you have that book in your hand right now, and you're able to put it in other people's hands, the ones that you wanted to see it, or the perfect audience for it? You're like, “I want to help women that had challenges giving birth, or I want to help women that couldn't get pregnant,” and being able to put that book in somebody's hands.
Siri Shakti: Yes, that would help them. Write it down, and see it. Visualize what it would be like in your life at the same time, because what you want to do is you want to create emotion so you have a leverage on yourself to keep yourself locked into your commitment. Then on the other side, for the second question, what pain would it cause in your life, or what would it look like in your life if you never committed to this? What would you miss out on, because I want you to see the distinction between just following through and sticking with your commitment versus not, because when you have clarity, when you can see the clear difference, then sticking with your commitment is going to be that much easier.
Dr. Dan: What we've heard is the rocking chair test. If you're sitting in your rocking chair, you're old now. You're 140 years old. You're on the rocking chair, and you're sitting there rocking back and forth. You're whittling some wood or whatever they're doing in the future at that time. Somebody talks like, “Oh, hey, do you have any regrets?” I mean, what would that feel like to say, “Yeah, I have a regret. I always wanted to write a book to help people on this topic, but I didn't do it. I was too scared.” That would suck, right, but imagine how that feel if you didn't have that regret, because you did it.
Dr. Dan: That would feel amazing, and all the people that thanked you for that book or your podcast, or the business you started that helped your family or whatever the reason is that you want to do those things. Imagine that. Imagine wanting to be more active, and you led a healthy lifestyle, and you felt great.
Siri Shakti: Yup, and that inspired your family and your friends, and they took care of themselves. You know what I mean? All the things that you want to create, it affects other people and your life as well positively. That's what this comes down to. Make sure for each of those three things, answer these two questions in detail, and envision what it would be like to have followed through. That is so important.
Dr. Dan: Exactly.
Siri Shakti: Beautiful. All right guys, well, don't forget to be a RockStar in your life.
Dr. Dan: And make the world your stage.
Be a RockStar In Your Life.
& Make The World Your Stage!
If you love what you hear…
Please “Subscribe” to the Podcast
and leave some comment love on iTunes by using the “Rate and Review”
