The 100% Rule

I recently watched Benjamin Hardy's Ted Talk The 100 Percent Rule That Will Change Your Life and found it very enlightening. 

In this talk, Benjamin talks about a man named Elko, who was overweight. Elko’s family had ingrained in his head that he would always struggle with his weight. So that became Elko’s identity. That was until one night Elko thought to himself what if I went back to eating from the earth or clean eating and what if I did it for the rest of my life. So, he committed to the idea and lived by the mantra 100% is easier than 98%. 

The idea behind this mantra is that if you’re not 100% committed, then you haven’t truly decided to commit yet. By making a 100% commitment, Elko never had to debate in his mind to eat clean, he just always did it. With only a 98% commitment, you don’t know what the outcome will be in future scenarios. For example, at 98% committed when presented with dessert Elko would have had a tug of war in his head on whether or not to eat it. At 100% committed, Elko had already made the decision long ago, that he doesn’t eat desserts. I thought this was a really interesting way of looking at things, not only for sticking to a diet but for all aspects of your life. As Michael Jordan said “Once I made a decision I never thought about it again”