Most people fail not because of a lack of desire but because of a lack of commitment – Vince Lombardi
If you have ever played poker, you understand the emotional roller coaster you experience until you either lose all your chips or win the entire pot. I am talking about the level of excitement you feel when you are dealt your first two cards, and you are in luck because they happen to be two aces, but then you end up losing to someone who has three of a kind. The worst-case scenario is if you have a full house and you keep raising the bets in confidence, believing that the hand is totally yours, and then another player reveals their four-of-a-kind winning hand, crushing your dreams. With no time to allow the trauma of the loss to process, you swiftly learn that the eventualities of losing hands are part of the game and how you deal with them is what matters.
Poker is a great game filled with valuable life lessons. It is a game of probability, computation, and making assumptions, and to make critical decisions, you will need to rely on previous experiences. For years I have incorporated a poker rule (ALL IN) and an element (the poker chip) into my life to solidify my commitments, accomplish goals, build good habits, detox from unhealthy habits, and other benefits I will discuss in more detail below. Just keep reading, and yes, you have time.
If you ever visit me in my office, you will notice I have three poker chips on my desk. The middle one has my wife’s name, the one to the right has my current employer’s name, and the third has “Elora Blog.” A poker chip serves as a constant reminder of my ALL INs and is a symbol that is Simple, Visible, and Personal. I will discuss these three attributes in more detail later. I always keep them handy, either in front of me on my desk or in my pocket. The poker chip with my wife’s name symbolizes my commitment to her, that she is my 100 percent, my top priority, and my ALL IN. There are days I want to throw the chip at her because, c’mon, she drives me crazy, but I can never think of handing it over to her and losing my grasp of it. The second and third chips indicate my current commitments. These are daily reminders of my top priorities. On my last day of employment with my former employer, I gave them the poker chip engraved with their name on it as a symbol of my commitment ending.
I encourage you to look into your life and identify what your priorities are. What are your ALL INs at this point in life? Life is busy, and we are constantly exposed to distractions that derail our focus. For instance, you decide that your ALL IN will be staying healthy, thereby maximizing your daily decisions to encourage a healthy lifestyle. Eating healthily, exercising, and adopting healthy behaviors are all practices that support this goal. This seems straightforward, and you will generally have no problem changing your habits and be able to stick to them without any struggles, distractions, or temptations. But for the rest of us, ordinary people, we do struggle. It is important that we get help, accountability, and see progress so we can move forward.
With all the punches and setbacks in life, what if you could find a symbol that would inspire you to stay committed and motivated toward your goals? Consider a poker chip that says “Is it healthy?” on it. You carry it everywhere and keep it on your desk so that it is always in view. The accountability will help you stay focused on your goals and give you the best chance of success. This will help you to make daily decisions towards your goal, providing clarity and direction.
Where are my numbers people? The following paragraph will satisfy your dirty lust for percentages and numbers. The following figures are meant to illustrate the importance of writing down your goals and being able to see them daily. Did you know:
25 percent of people give up on their New Year’s resolution after 6 days
60 percent of people give up on their New Year’s resolution at six months
Only 5 percent of people lost weight on a diet and kept it off
Only 14 percent of patients who previously had a heart attack made changes around their exercise or eating habits
A study by the Dominican University of California showed you are 42 percent more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down
A study by Harvard Business School found the percentage of MBA graduates who wrote down their goals was 3 percent, and they ended up making ten times more salary than the 97 percent who did not write down their goals within 10 years
So yeah, write down your goals yo…because the science says so!
Now, where are my psychology folks? You know, those people who use big words and are curious how the brain works and believe they are more intelligent than everyone else. Yeah, you. I'd like to share seven concepts to illustrate the value of writing down your goals and commitments and keeping them visible at all times.
1. Brain-to-Hand Connection – Did you know there is a powerful brain-to-hand connection that comes into effect once you write down your goals and commitments? When you write them down and have them visible to you, they are planted in your brain, and they stick.
2. Clarity and Focus – You will be able to filter through activities, things, and people with a clear and narrow focus on your goals.
3. No Wiggling or Fudging – A written goal or commitment leaves little to no room to wiggle your way out of it.
4. The Conscious Flagging the Subconscious – A daily reminder from your conscious self to your subconscious about the importance of your goals and commitments.
5. Encoding to the Hippocampus – When your brain sees something, this information is transmitted to a part in the brain that decides what is important to keep in the long-term memory and what to delete. This part of the brain is called the hippocampus.
6. Generation Effect – A fancy name that basically means if you create (generate) something like writing your goal or commitment, you are more likely to recall it than trying to remember an interest or a hobby. Neuropsychologists have found that people have a better recall for information they made themselves, aka writing goals and commitments down, than for information they read. As a part of the decision-making process, your brain will assign more importance to the content you generate.
7. Internal Drill Sergeant – When you have your commitments and goals written down, they will serve as a driving force that pushes, pesters, and nudges you to stay on course until they are done.
How are you doing? Still engaged? Do you see hope for you? If yes, why not share the post with someone that needs it! I encourage you to do that quickly and let’s keep going. We are at the final stretch!
Do you remember the three attributes I previously connected to why I chose a poker chip? Simple, Visible, and Personal. Here's why a poker chip represents a simple, visible, and personal symbol to me, and hopefully, this will inspire you to choose your own or feel free to use mine.
Simple– A poker chip is round, which means infinity and no expiration, and that is how long I want my marriage to last. Poker chips have different colors that carry different values, allowing me to rank my commitments where my wife is the highest value of all.
Visible – I am sure you have heard the saying “out of sight, out of mind,” which simply explains this attribute. If you cannot see it every day, then you have a souvenir and not a symbol.
Personal– A poker chip has a personal attribute to me because of the life lessons I learned from watching the WSOP competition for years while I worked as a security guard overnight at a hotel in Malibu Beach. Here are six lessons I have learned:
1. Discipline – If you play poker, you know you cannot win every hand. Sometimes it may seem you are ahead and close to winning, but then the river card hits the table and changes everything. A disciplined poker player knows when to fold and resist any temptation. In life, we often feel we have everything under control and on track to hit all our goals and plans to the point of taking things for granted. Then life throws us a river card that changes everything. Do we have the discipline in life to know when to hang in there, let go, or try harder?
2. Patience – Of course, I would not mind showing up to poker night, splashing bids, bluffing some, winning some chips, and quickly cashing out. Usually, those are small wins, and you miss much bigger wins. A good poker player aims to increase their bankroll and play the game with a long-term strategy with the whole pot in mind. It will take a lot of patience blended with good decision-making to end up winning the entire pot in the end. There are times in life where we can make certain decisions that produce short-term wins only to have them taken away from us or to regret them later. Being patient, strategic, and making long-term decisions can create long-lasting wins.
3. Who are you when the Chips are Down? – When we are winning, and life is good, it is easy to be the best version of ourselves. You know that version where we are positive, encouraging, supportive, and inclusive human beings. It gets interesting when we face adversity. Masks are off, and you face your true self. In poker, you can have a 96 percent chance of winning that turns into 0 percent with the turn of a single card. Who are you when that happens? It is a good question to reflect on introspectively and spend the time to know the real you, so you know how to improve yourself.
4. Are you Responding or Reacting? – Similar to life, a poker player faces many setbacks and failures that might leave the player fearful of trying again. However, a good poker player knows that setbacks are not the end of the game but rather a part of it and learns how to move past them by responding to them instead of reacting to them. Failure is feedback!
A good poker player knows that reacting to everything that comes along limits their chances of succeeding. They learn how to respond to problems instead of reacting to them. Reacting is negative, whereas responding is positive. When you take medicine, you can react to it by having the side effects that are negative, or you can respond to it by recovering from sickness, and that is positive. The question is whether you react to your problems or respond to them.
5. Builds Emotional Maturity (Emotional Control) – Poker is a capricious game, unforgiving not just to one’s bankroll but to one’s soul. The game is a roller coaster of emotions – stress, excitement, and anxiety are some of the many emotions that you may experience. Poker is also about the degree of hiding emotions when required. The other players should not be able to read your face or mind, and as a result, they will not know the cards that you may have. After all, it is vital to keep a “poker face” on the table! This is a game that will assess your emotional control and help you acquire the skills to manage these emotions. Don’t be a dog!
6. Selective Aggressiveness – For some reason, it just feels natural to seek action while playing poker and, therefore, play as many hands as possible. This might not be the best decision both in poker and life. If we want to succeed, we must learn to pick battles carefully and avoid spreading ourselves too thin. Having the ability to say “no” will make it easier for us to identify what really matters to us.
Having gathered all this information, I invite you to choose three symbols and assign three commitments to each one. If you need help deciding on a symbol, send me a message, and we will work this out. Finally, I have one question for you:
I have enjoyed walking through this journey with you, and I hope you have found this beneficial to you or someone you love. Before we go separate ways back to reality, make sure to share this post and subscribe so I can connect with you and notify you of future content. Bye for now!