Coaching practices for Commitment Beyond Self Interest
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Commitment Beyond Self Interest, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- We default to whatever each of us wants in the moment, and I rarely choose their preference over mine on purpose
- When the only reason I push through is what I personally get out of it, that motivation evaporates the second I’m exhausted or having a bad day
- I keep chasing my own happiness head-on and it keeps slipping away
- In a calm moment I swear I’ll save the raise or skip the splurge, but when the actual moment comes my willpower just isn’t there
- My life is arranged almost entirely around my own preferences and comfort, and it’s left me feeling weightless and adrift
Practices that may help
- Willingness to sacrifice: building relationship-oriented decision-making
Practice making at least one weekly decision that prioritizes the relationship over personal short-term convenience.
The Investment Model of Commitment: Why People Stay (and Why They Leave) - Connect daily work to a larger stake in the world
Hardiness’s commitment dimension is deepened when the meaning of what you do connects to something beyond personal benefit.
Psychological Hardiness, Made Practical - Dedicate yourself to a cause beyond yourself
Commit time and effort to something larger than your own interests.
Self-Transcendence: Beyond the Self - Use precommitment devices to bind your present self to your future self’s preferences
Commit future behavior before the moment of temptation, because your present self is the weak link.
Future Self Continuity, Made Practical - Commitment Contracts, Made Practical
A commitment contract binds your future self to a course of action by attaching real costs — financial, social, or reputational — to failure. The evidence from savings programs and behavioral economics is solid for financial commitments; effects on health and habit change are positive but more variable, and contracts work best when you already want to change. - Make a commitment that transcends self-interest
Bind yourself to a person, cause, or calling that comes before your own preferences.
The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character - Use precommitment devices to lock in future behavior from a patient vantage point
Remove the option to defect when temptation peaks by committing now, before present bias activates.
Hyperbolic Discounting — Why Future You Always Gets the Short End - Identify and commit to a cause larger than personal gain
Find something worth giving your best effort to that benefits others beyond yourself.
Maslow’s Self-Transcendence, Made Practical - Use commitment devices to make future behavior harder to avoid
Pre-commit to the behavior now — when your current self is motivated — to bind your future self.
Action Planning - Use a precommitment device to lock in future behavior
Restrict your future self’s choices now, when motivation is high.
Nudge Theory, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Precommitment Couples
A precommitment device is a constraint you impose on your future self while you still have the clarity to want the right thing — locking in a choice so the weaker, in-the-moment you cannot undo it. Commitment contracts (including ones with real money or social stakes) have solid experimental support, though they help most for people already motivated to change.
- Commit To Future Behavior
Pre-commit to the behavior now — when your current self is motivated — to bind your future self.
Use commitment devices to make future behavior harder to avoid
- Commitment And Choice
A commitment contract binds your future self to a course of action by attaching real costs — financial, social, or reputational — to failure. The evidence from savings programs and behavioral economics is solid for financial commitments; effects on health and habit change are positive but more variable, and contracts work best when you already want to change.
- Commitment Consolidation
A commitment contract binds your future self to a course of action by attaching real costs — financial, social, or reputational — to failure. The evidence from savings programs and behavioral economics is solid for financial commitments; effects on health and habit change are positive but more variable, and contracts work best when you already want to change.
- Commitment Device Money
A precommitment device is a constraint you impose on your future self while you still have the clarity to want the right thing — locking in a choice so the weaker, in-the-moment you cannot undo it. Commitment contracts (including ones with real money or social stakes) have solid experimental support, though they help most for people already motivated to change.
- Commitment Device Savings
A precommitment device is a constraint you impose on your future self while you still have the clarity to want the right thing — locking in a choice so the weaker, in-the-moment you cannot undo it. Commitment contracts (including ones with real money or social stakes) have solid experimental support, though they help most for people already motivated to change.
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