The Point of No Return

How To Get Committed To Your Desired Future

**Image by author created using Midjourney**

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The moment you make a decision, the universe will conspire to make it happen.”

By that standard, if the universe isn’t conspiring to make things happen for you, you haven’t made a decision.

This is a major problem in today’s world…

People are too afraid of making decisions.

Refusing to make a decision leaves you with many options.

When you have many options, your brain has been conditioned through years of evolution to opt for the clearest and easiest path.

This isn’t always optimal for what you claim you want.

The clearest and easiest path is usually a distraction that obstructs you from your real desires.

It reassures you but kills your hopes in the process.

If you wanna change that, you must bring yourself to the point of no return.

Yup…

I’m saying you gotta burn the boat.

Nobody wants to mess up

I made one of the dumbest mistakes a guy could make…

There was a lady I’d known for a little while.

We’d been going to the same church (Yes, the cult).

Apparently, she fancied me, but I never caught the signs — I thought she was buying me gifts cos she was a kind person.

Anyways, fast-forward a couple of years…

We’d lost contact and reconnected in 2022.

When I saw her, I was shocked. She had completely changed. It was hard not to stare at her.

The glow-up was real!

In her words, “I’ve just been working on myself.”

It definitely showed…

I was gonna visit the Tower of London Museum and thought it would be a great opportunity for us to catch up, so I invited her and she came.

After a few hours of touring the museum, we got hungry — this is where I messed up…

“What do you wanna eat?” I said.

The next two hours were spent waiting for her to answer the question.

Eventually, I decided we should go to Madison’s Rooftop. She bought in with zero fuss. I couldn’t believe that’s all I had to do — we just wasted two hours!

It turns out my phone was listening in on what happened that day cos YouTube couldn’t stop showing me videos of what happens when you ask a lady what to eat.

Apparently, it’s a thing…

Women don’t know what they wanna eat.

Me being the nerd that I am, I looked into why.

It turns out women do know what they wanna eat...

They just don’t wanna be the one to decide.

Why?

Making the decision means they’re responsible for how things turn out.

They don’t want this burden. They don’t want it to be their fault if things go wrong.

But this problem isn’t exclusive to women.

Just think about it…

Why haven’t you started making progress toward your desired future?

You haven’t made a decision. You still have several options, and the path you take is the clearest and the easiest.

Why haven’t you made a decision?

You’re scared of what can go wrong.

What’s ultimately governing your choices is the fear of failure.

You’ve gotten comfortable with the option that has the clearest path.

You seek solace in the certainty and fail to realize your lack of decisiveness is exactly what’s holding you back.

Your brain is a lazy organ

In 1964, Victor H. Vroom developed something known as expectancy theory through his study of the motivations behind decision-making.

According to this theory, there’s always a path your life follows.

Namely, expectancy theory proposes an individual will behave in a certain way because they are motivated to select a specific behavior over others due to what they expect the result of that selected behavior will be.

But when there’s multiple paths (a.k.a. you have too many options), the automated response of your brain is to select the path of least resistance.

Why?

Your brain is a lazy organ.

In accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, as energy is transferred or transformed, more and more of it is wasted, which explains why your brain would rather opt for the easier path — it’s hardwired to conserve energy…

This isn’t always good for you.

Robert Brault once said, “We’re kept from our goal not by obstacles but by a clear path to lesser goals,” and this is what he meant —

Clear paths to lesser goals may offer solace but are a hindrance.

For example, let’s say you know you should be writing on Medium to build an audience of buyers and increase your authority in your domain, but you don’t do it.

Why don’t you do it?

Well, cos you’ve got a job that pays you comfortably every month, and you don’t “need” to do it right now. You’ve prioritized other things.

By the time you get around to writing, you’re tired.

You don’t have the energy to focus, and then you start searching for productivity hacks to focus better (another distraction).

You don’t lack focus my friend!

You’ve just got too many options.

You’ve got a clear path to a lesser goal.

All of these things have made it difficult for you to commit to realizing the one true goal that will transform your life significantly.

You’re comfortable knowing there’s alternative options.

The point of no return

I still remember the sequence of events that made me realize my friend was gonna be trapped in the cult…

He had been with his girlfriend for six years, and she left him as she couldn’t comprehend why he devoted so much of his time to someone who was clearly manipulating him (the pastor).

After a few months apart, she got in contact to touch base. The truth is she missed him and wanted to know if he’d left. He hadn’t

She also took the opportunity to notify him she’d moved on and had a new boyfriend.

My heart sank for him.

The whole mood in the car changed. We drove home in silence.

He no longer had anything to lose.

A few days later, he remortgaged his dad’s property and gave all the money to the church.

This was his point of no return.

He couldn’t go back from here; he could only go forward…

You’re not fully committed to your desired future until you’ve got nothing else to lose and making a significant financial investment is the catalyst for this to happen.

The more you invest, the more committed you become.

It’s the reason people stay in bad relationships — they’ve invested a lot of resources into it. Their commitment is high!

One of the concepts behind this phenomenon is called the sunk-cost fallacy.

It’s when a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they’ve invested heavily in it.

People usually think of it in a negative light, but it can work in your favor too.

You only get committed to bringing about your desired future when you’ve invested in it.

Commitment births courage.

You’ll be willing to try things that might not work cos you’ve passed the point of no return. This is why my old mate cut off all his old friends.

It also changes your worldview, hence why Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The moment you make a decision, the universe will conspire to make it happen.”

What’s really happening behind the scenes is your selective attention has dialed in on bringing about your desired outcome since that’s what you’re most committed to.

It seems like everything is happening for you cos that’s what you’ve told your subconscious to focus on.

In saying all of this, I’m not telling you to empty your bank or quit your job.

You can start small…

Invest in a course or book.

As you invest more and more, your commitment will increase.

No one would have to tell you to wake up in the morning; you’ll just do it.

That’s the power of the point of no return.

Final thoughts

Change only happens when you’re 100% committed.

But commitment requires a decision.

You can’t be one foot in and one foot out. You must cut out all other options so there’s nothing you have left to lose and then supercharge your commitment with a significant financial investment into the desired future you want.

This will take you to the point of no return.

When you can’t go back, you can only go forward.

Thanks for reading!