Be Aware of your Behavior After Making a Commitment

In my favorite book of all time, Influenced by Dr. Robert Cialdini, we are introduced to six different mental shortcuts we have the certain people that can take advantage of for personal gain, and they are reciprocity, commitment, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. The pillar I want to focus on is commitment and consistency.

Our behavior is affected by previous commitments that we make because our mind prefers to maintain a consistent state. This means that if we make a micro-commitment, it could very well grow into a larger commitment simply out of comfort.  

So In the spirit of today, which is the second episode of my guilty pleasure “The Bachelor”, I am going to share a Bachelor related example. 

To be on the show, all of the girls completely uproot their life in the hopes that they would find love. With all of that sacrifice, the girls must justify their decision to leave, and the only thing that could truly validate their decision is to end up with the bachelor.  So, their behavior becomes consistent with that decision they made, and they become over-infatuated with the Bachelor because that is the only things that would validate their commitment. This explains why they truly believe they can fall in love so quickly.

No,today’s tip isn’t to be on the Bachelor, although that would be a good one, it is to be aware of your behavior after making a commitment. You would be surprised how many micro-commitments we make a day, and how strongly motivating it is to be consistent with that commitment. It’s the reason why accountability is so effective. Your brain prefers to follow through on the things you set out to do, or else you will experience cognitive dissonance, which is a state of inconsistency in your thoughts.