Making A Commitment VS Forcing Yourself: How To Tell The Difference (Before It Wrecks You)

Wanna know how to tell the difference between making a commitment and forcing yourself into something that doesn’t produce any growth? This post is dedicated to helping you break free from the confusing, self-sabotaging grind of pushing through the wrong things.

Forcing yourself can make you feel cursed like Sisyphus: it’s exhausting, frustrating, and pointless. You keep telling yourself ‘Just try harder’ & ‘Never give up’, but no matter how much effort you put in, you never get your return on investment back. You’re burning yourself out, and yet you can’t walk away because you grew up believing that quitting is a moral failing. Overachievers like us are experts in sticking things out too long, convincing ourselves that if we endure long enough, we’ll finally deserve our success.

What you’re going to learn is how to tell the difference between real commitment and blind forcing, the kind that keeps you trapped in a dead-end with no exit. We’ll break down the key signs that you’re forcing the wrong things, show you how to recognize aligned action, and help you see when pushing harder isn’t the answer, but making the right decision is.

After you’ve learned to commit to the right things and let go of the dead weight, you’ll feel lighter, more in control and aligned, and finally able to put your energy where it actually pays off. You’ll build stronger self-trust, take smarter charge of your time, and move forward with stead-fast certainty instead of that brain-foggy frustration.

This post is all about making a commitment vs forcing yourself, so you can stop running in circles, start directing your energy to things that make you grow, and actually move toward achieving your goals.

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Making A Commitment

It’s frustratingly hard to tell the difference between commitment & forcing yourself once your commitment is hitting that inevitable dip. In the beginning, sure, it was still fun! But now you’re in the slog between starting and mastery. It’s an actual shortcut to your goal & bucket list item, so you should stick with it! But it’s also very hard to discern from forcing! After all, you are willpowering yourself through it!

Aligned action, the kind that comes from a deep connection to your goals & values, still comes with struggle and force. Budgeting can feel restrictive, boring and annoying, but still builds your long-term wealth. Training for a marathon sucks hard in the moment, but leads to strength and endurance. These are dip moments, but worth pushing through. But forcing? That’s dragging yourself through misery without any real reward to make up for it! It’s a Sisyphus-level grind, where no matter how hard you push, you don’t actually grow.

This is why knowing your non-negotiables BEFORE your commit is critical. If you’re forcing, it’s time to take a step back and rethink how you can redirect your effort towards something more deserving of your energy. But if you’re in the dip, it’s time to embrace the suck and push through. So, let’s break things down, and see if we can get a grip:

Difference #1: Commitment Is About Growth, Forcing About ‘Staying Safe’

I really think that this is the biggest indicator of them all: commitment is about building, forcing is about clinging. One moves you forward, the other keeps you stagnant. When you commit to something, you’re ‘planting seeds’, putting in effort, and aiming for a level up, even if you’re in the dip. When you force something, you’re just pushing through resistance, *hoping* things will change without actually getting closer to achieving your goals. You’re just burning through willpower.

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Seth Godin’s little book The Dip goes over this difference with two graphs: the dip, a challenge & commitment that’s hard, but worth pushing through. And, the forced dead-end (or as he calls it: cul-de-sac) that leads nowhere, keeping you tied to your standard base level. One aims for success and is rooted in growth, the other aims for average, mediocre & normal and is rooted in fear of change.

You can also see this as the stereotypical renting vs. buying a house. Commitment is like that. It requires an investment. Renting feels stable, but you’re not actually investing. Overachievers like us tend to stick with forced things too long because we believe that quitting is a failure. But here’s a question you NEED to ask yourself: What measurable progress am I making with this effort? Commit to things that make you grow. Drop what keeps you stuck in the same place.

Difference #2: Committing Causes a Dip, Forcing Causes A Flatliner

Seth Godin argues in his book, that if it’s worth doing, there’s probably going to be a dip. This is that rough patch, the slog you have to pull through. It’s the challenging moment where you ask yourself ‘Is All This Hard Work Even Worth It’? The difference to forcing it, is tho: in a Dip, there’s a reward on the other side. In the end, that curve will go up again. In a dead-end, there’s just more of the same.

He also argues that you should quit as soon as you find out that you’re in a dead-end. Because! It’s a black hole for your potential! This is where effort goes to die. No matter how hard you push, nothing gets better, and the graph just stays as a flatliner. And. We should also, only commit if we know we can handle the dip. If we can’t pull through when things get tough, we shouldn’t start and commit in the first place. Because both lead to wasted effort. And that really is failing.

So, if you’ve been pushing and pushing, but you’re still in the same place, it’s time for a reality check: Quitting isn’t always the enemy. Forcing yourself comes from that fear-driven urge to ‘fix’ things, even when deep down, you know it’s not working. Strategically quit that noise! Because quitting something that’s not going to produce growth, frees up your bandwidth for something that does! Redirect the effort toward another area of your life where you DO have a fair shot at growth! Funny right? It’s strategically quitting the forced things, that makes you stronger at your actual commitments.

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Difference #3: Commitment Builds A Dream, Forcing Just Maintains Status Quo

If you would consult your conscience and gut feelings, then what answer does it give to the question: What is all this effort actually for? Because if you can’t clearly define what you’re working toward, chances are, you’re on the wrong side of the equation, forcing yourself into something just to keep things ‘stable’.

Real commitment moves you toward something bigger: a career that excites you, a relationship that deepens, or a goal that lights you up. Forcing yourself tho? That’s just staying together for the kids. That’s pushing for a promotion at a job you hate because you’ve already put in the years. Again, it’s not about growth, but about stagnation.

Ask yourself: Am I actually working toward something on my bucket list? Or am I just trying not to lose what I already have? Overachievers love to grind for their goals, but can also easily fall into the endurism trap: where suffering is glorified as martyrdom & ‘hard work’. Spoiler alert: pain for the sake of pain isn’t noble. That’s self-sacrifice without having a ‘greater good’. Grinding without direction is just wasting energy. You can push a boulder up a hill forever (hi again, Sisyphus), or, you can make the call to redirect that energy somewhere that actually makes sense.

If you’re in a dead-end job, a relationship with no future, or a goal you don’t actually want, it’s time to get real with yourself. Letting go isn’t failure. Forcing yourself to stay in place, however, is. Time for an escape plan!

Difference #4: Commitment Is Aligned Action On Your Values, Forcing Is At The Cost Of It

If you’re constantly battling yourself to ‘just keep going’, that’s not commitment. That’s forcing unaligned action, which produces cognitive dissonance. This is the psychological distress of forcing yourself to do things that don’t align with who you are. To be blunt: it’s self treason. If you start to discern the difference between making a commitment & forcing yourself a couple of weeks in a row, you’ll start to recognize the icky disgusting feeling more and more.

The Endowment Effect (Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1991) shows that we tend to overvalue things once we’ve invested in them. So you’re unknowingly blind to whether or not something benefits you. This is why so many of us fall prey to bad jobs, toxic relationships, and draining projects! It’s NOT because we love it so much!? It’s because we’ve already put so much effort & time on them, that we can’t let go anymore!

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But try to catch yourself here by answering this question. Who am I trying to impress or influence? If the answer isn’t YOU, you kinda already lost. Forcing things out of pride or fear is a guarantee for burning yourself out. Committing to what actually serves you will light you up tho!

At the end of the day, committing isn’t about ‘never giving up’. It’s about knowing upfront what’s worth your time, and what’s just wasting it. Having done the emotional work on your non-negotiables empowers you to recognize your cue to walk away & call it quits. Because letting go of dead weight is always a smart strategic move. Being able to trust yourself to make the right choices that actually move you forward

Making A Commitment (Summary)

Commitment and forcing look the same on the surface. Both are hard. But commitment leads to growth, while forcing keeps you stuck in the status quo. The difference is visible in the deeper layers. Commitment aligns with your values, fuels your growth process, and helps you build something meaningful. Forcing keeps you in survival mode, making you grind for the sake of grinding and ‘getting by’.

If you’re constantly pushing but not actually getting anywhere, you might be trapped in a dead-end instead of the Dip. I highly recommend reading more about this in Seth Godin’s The Dip. In here you’ll find more keys to making the right decisions, like knowing what you’re working toward, recognizing when something is just draining you, and having the guts to quit what isn’t serving you.

This isn’t about giving up anymore. It’s about being smart & strategic with your energy, time & effort. Strategically quit the things that aren’t going anywhere, double down on what actually gets you closer to your goals, and trust yourself and your intuition to make the right call. Because wasting time on the wrong things in life, is the only real failure you should fear.

This post was all about making a commitment vs forcing yourself, so you can stop running in circles, start directing your energy to things that make you grow, and actually move toward achieving your goals.

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