'Skin in the Game': re-orienting how we think about commitment.

‘Skin in the Game’?

Such a funny expression, but I understand what it means—the idea that you have something on the line, you’ve paid up, you have something to lose, you’re committed.

It can look, for all the world, as if the ‘payment’ (in whatever currency—money, or time, or perhaps offering up your first born… ;-)) is the means by which the commitment is generated.

And yes, sometimes it can feel that way. I just paid good hard cash for an eight-week fitness programme thinking,

eek I don’t really want to do this but I’m gonna pay up and that’s how I’m going to make myself show up!

Really though? Is that how it works?

…that I will continually remind myself of my lost pounds (the financial ones not the ones that weigh on my scales), and I will therefore be more likely to turn up?

…that I paid for this to ‘make’ myself do something that I had been, seemingly, unable to complete alone?

Is that what it means to have skin in the game?

An Effect, not the Cause?

Life definitely looks that way to me some of the time, but it’s interesting when I really examine this idea, and dig a little deeper.

What I usually see is that the commitment, and the desire, comes first, and then the commitment generates my willingness to pay, not the other way round. I really want to do it, and, therefore, if I can afford it, I will pay.

But what about all those free things I sign up to Cathy, that I never complete?? If I had to pay, I know for sure I wouldn’t do as many of them.

Yep, I get that too, and, me too…

But I see it as simply a too-fast decision, that I've jumped on the latest ‘thing’ before asking myself,

Do I really want to do this?

What might happen if we stopped more often, to think about whether we want to do something or not?

Stop and Listen…

I might still move as fast when I know the answer, but I’m much less likely to use a device, like money, to get in the way of listening to myself.

We might not be very practised at listening, and that might mean the signal is a little bit fuzzy—we don’t know what we want—or the answer doesn’t come right away, and that can be frustrating.

What Might You Hear?

If we took more time with ourselves, asked better questions; if we saw that wanting and paying are on two separate scales, and that payment is a signal of affordability, not an exchange of one thing for another, then who knows, we might actually do more of what we want, and less of what we don’t.

It looks to me like I get a more honest answer when I ask good questions of myself—and that I can rely on those answers more of the time. There’s a truth to be heard if I care to listen.

And it doesn’t look to me as payment and desire as connected as we think they are…

With love,

Cathy