--- title: "The Three C's Of Committment" entity: "blog" canonical_url: "https://www.elevatefunctionalhealth.ca/blog/the-three-c-s-of-committment" markdown_url: "https://www.elevatefunctionalhealth.ca/llms/blog/the-three-c-s-of-committment" lastmod: "2025-05-20T22:42:39.000Z" --- I hear hear it all the time - not just in my practice, but with friends and family too. I want to____ but I can’t because _____ or I don’t want to do ____. I catch myself doing this too. Making excuses, or at least not fully committing. My mentor called my mentorship group out on this on our last call, and briefly discussed the three C’s of commitment. I loved this so much that I wanted to share them with all of you. For the next time you are getting frustrated with not achieving a goal you’ve set, ask yourself if you are, or even have the capacity to, be fully committed to it. ## C #1: Calendar If I were to look at your calendar or planner, I should easily be able to tell what your priorities are. If you are committed to your fitness, you will have workouts scheduled. If your family is a priority, there will be events and activities set into the schedule. If you want to learn how to play an instrument, you’ll have lessons and time to practice blocked out. The first “C” of the three C’s of commitment is Calendar, or, committing with your time. The busier someone is, the more important booking things into your calendar or schedule becomes. It’s true some of us have more time to commit to our goals than others, but if you value something enough, you will find the time to make it work. If you don’t, it just means it’s not your TOP priority. Let me use myself as an example. When I was 23 years old, I ruptured my ACL during my first rugby game of the season. I was devastated! I loved rugby so much (and still do!), and had big goals for myself. I wanted to play for team Canada and was peaking at the right time to do that - as captain of my club team and forwards captain for team Ontario, I was feeling confident and putting in the work to achieve that goal…prior to the knee injury. I didn’t want to let the knee injury stop me, but if I wanted to still live out my rugby aspirations, I now had to have a new goal: recover this damaged knee. I was lucky enough to get a surgical consult without too long of a wait, and started on physiotherapy right away. This is where the first C of commitment, calendar , comes into play. I blocked out time in my calendar to actually do my rehabilitation exercises, and of course, go and see my physiotherapist. If I’m being honest, this is a common area where most of my patients seeking to rehabilitate one of their injuries, fails. I booked physical rehabilitation into my calendar. Many of my patients do not. they come back and reluctantly admit they did not do their exercises. Or at least not as often as they said they would. For me, committing to my rehab exercises was easy to do prior to the knee surgery, which was scheduled for August, 30th. The post-surgery rehab exercise sessions would be more difficult to commit to, because I started naturopathic medical school that September. I had 40 hours of lecture per week, which does not include studying hours outside of lecture, and time to work on assignments. I was busy. But, I looked at my schedule, and booked in rehab time every school day. While most of my classmates would head to the library, I headed to the gym and did my rehab. Every. Single. Day. Was it boring? YES! Did I do it anyways? YES! For over 9 months post-surgery. Because I was committed. ## C #2: Capital The second C of commitment is capital. If you are truly committed to your goal, you will be willing to put money behind it. Even if you don’t have the money, if you are serious, you’ll find a way to pay. I’ve witnessed people with no money buy a big flat screen TV with their credit card…because they valued it that much, and I guess were committed enough to their Netflix and Chill goals, that they were willing to put their capital (or credit) behind it. And as the saying goes; when people pay, they pay attention. With my goal of rehabilitating my knee, I had to commit with my capital by paying out of pocket to see a physiotherapist two times per week, as I had burned through my benefits very quickly. I didn’t love having to pay for physiotherapy, but I was fully committed to my goal, and I knew that this was a big, important part of achieving my goal, so I did it. Committing with capital is a big sticking point for the majority of patients seeing an alternative health care practitioner, and a conversation I have more often than I’d like to with patients. I suspect that for Canadians at least, we have come to expect that health care be “free”. (Free is in quotations because it isn’t actually free, we pay for it through our tax dollars.) But what is actually included in this free "health" care is actually disease care in the majority of cases. It is nice to have free disease care, and emergency care, but for those of you who are seeking health and disease prevention, you should plan to pay out of pocket at some point. Even with extended health coverage, still plan to pay out of pocket. Think of extended coverage as a bonus to get you started, but it most likely won’t get you exactly where you want to go. From my experience, the hesitation and even frustration, to have to pay for healthcare, comes from the unknown. The lack of guarantee of results. I think most of us would be willing to fork out our hard earned cash if the results we were seeking were 100% guaranteed. Unfortunately, in medicine, they can never be guaranteed. We are working with human beings, not cars. There is a lot of unknown and a lot of individual variability. But, even if you do not get the results you desire from working with a health care practitioner, there’s no doubt you’ll be closer to achieving your goals. Whether that’s learning what doesn’t work, or, merely getting slightly better, every dollar you spend is helping, in some way. Commit with your capital. ## C #3: Coaching Let’s phase it, you can’t be an expert in everything, nor can you be completely objective with yourself. This is why we hire coaches to help us achieve our goals. Even if we are experts in the area of the goals we wish to achieve, having the external accountability and objective perspective of a coach will no doubt get you to your goals faster and with more ease. For my knee rehab, my physiotherapist was my coach. For my business, my business mentor is my coach. For my rugby aspirations, my rugby coach is my coach. What do all elite athletes have in common? They all have a coach. When it comes to health, a naturopathic doctor makes a great coach (I’ll admit, this advice is strongly biased!). Commit to your goal by seeking out a coach. If one of your goals involves treating your joint pain, having more energy, solving digestive or hormonal concerns, come see us at Elevate Functional Health. We take people through our Active For Life signature care system, which uses our wide array of services in a very strategic manner, to help you achieve your health goals in a clear and effective way. Also, when you [book with us](elevatefunctionalhealth.janeapp.com), you’re automatically committing with all three C’s ;)