The Power of Consciously Not Doing
What is one commitment that you keep breaking? Whatever it is, you might think that you are not being productive. However, there is a way to get something valuable out of not doing something and to be able to foster self-growth despite failing to show up. And that is by being conscious of not doing or breaking your commitment.
Many individuals have a hard time following through with their goals by neglecting the commitments they have initially set to reach their goals. They decide to work out, but one day, other “urgent” things come up. They wanted to create significant changes in their life, like shift career paths, but then they drop and never pursue it.
When we fail to do something, we deprive ourselves of the chance to get closer to our goals. If we do it day after day, and year after year, we lose our self-respect and self-trust. We unknowingly put ourselves in a bad light for not being able to keep our commitments and slowly lose trust in ourselves, which hurts our confidence to do things.
Despite experiencing a lot of setbacks in achieving our goals, it’s important to remember that these are a normal part of any journey. You can still make use of these setbacks in a way that will help you reach your goals. A way to salvage your lapse is by being conscious of it. Not doing something is totally different from consciously not doing something.
It becomes a totally different experience when we don’t do something, and we are truly conscious of it. When we are not able to do something, we can do it in a way that hurts our goals less by being conscious and intentional about it. That way, we make ourselves responsible for it.
We did not just skip a task and forget about it because we were conscious about not doing it; we were intentional and aware of why we were not able to make it. And by being conscious of it, we become more conscious about how skipping it can be detrimental to achieving our goal. By becoming aware, we can think of ways to make up for it or prevent the recurring circumstances that caused us to fail to do it.
By consciously not doing something, we become proactive in considering setbacks in our goals. And by considering and acknowledging these setbacks, we can go about it by preparing our Plan Z. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, has proposed a unique approach to achieving our goals, which he calls “Plan Z”. The basic idea of Plan Z is to consciously consider what we would do if we were to fail in achieving our primary goal, and fail to achieve our Plan B, and to have an absolute non-negotiable backup plan or “Plan Z” in place. [1]
Another tool that we can utilize is the concept of atomic habits. Instead of giving up completely, you know that it’s better to pick up where you left off and start small. This concept was popularized by James Clear, who authored the book “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.” In the book, Clear breaks down the process of habit formation into simple, actionable steps that he calls “atomic habits.” He argues that by focusing on small, incremental changes, we can create lasting habits that lead to significant improvements in our lives over time. [2]
Similar to creating plan Z and forming atomic habits, consciously not doing is an essential tool to help us strengthen our commitment to our goals despite not being able to achieve our primary task related to achieving that goal. Even if we fail to do something, we can turn it around and help us realize our goals more by being conscious about it and internalizing how we can rise from this setback. This way of consciously not doing something is a very small commitment, but it can hugely impact our goal achievement. After all, small commitments are not there to get spectacular results quickly. They are there to build an identity that makes us do things that need to be done to get big results.
Of all the things related to achieving a goal, the one thing that we can never run from is missing at least one commitment or task. Therefore when we do so, we can make it our non-negotiable tiny habit to miss out on something consciously, to acknowledge and be conscious about not doing it, the reason behind it, and our state of mind and emotions whenever we fail to do something.
