The Joy of Commitment

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back always in effectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans, that the moment one definitely commits one’s self, then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have dreamt would have come his way.” W.H Murray

Bonjour and welcome to The French Kiss Life Podcast, where personal development meets style. I'm Tonya Leigh, certified master life coach and the hostess of this party, where we explore how to live artfully and well. Each week, I'll be sharing inspiring stories, practical tips, and timeless wisdom on how to elevate the quality of your everyday and celebrate along the way. Let's dive into today's episode.

Hello, my beautiful friends. Welcome back to another episode. I feel like I need to tell you how much I love recording these for you every single Wednesday. It truly is such a delight and it’s a strange experience because even though I’m sitting in my office with my microphone and you’re not anywhere close to me physically, I feel like we’re all together.

Maybe I’m just tapping into your energy, but I just have to say, I love doing these podcasts for you and I’m so grateful for all the feedback; for everyone that’s left a review, for everyone that’s shared the podcast, huge, huge thank you to all of you. Now, by the time you listen to this, I will be in London.

Yes, as you’re listening to this on Wednesday, I would have just landed in London and I’m so excited because I am going to be meeting up with the French Kiss Life community that is based in the UK. And if I’ve learned anything in this whole process of building my company, building a brand, community is everything, truly.

I am so delighted to have such phenomenal women around me. And someone said the other day, because they joined my Slim, Chic, and Savvy group, and they said, “This isn’t just some internet group, you guys are like family.” And I’m like, “Yeah, that’s sort of how we roll.” We support each other, we cheer each other on.  We have meet-ups. It’s super, super fun.

So, if you’re not involved in the French Kiss Life community, what in the world are you waiting for, truly? Like, a phenomenal group of women – if you want to get more involved, you can head over to frenchkisslife.com/manifesto and when you join the list, you will get a copy of the French Kiss Life manifesto and you will also get updates for when I may be popping into your city. I would love, love to meet you.

So, speaking of community, now is the part of the show where I have a Community Spotlight. This is when I highlight someone in the community that has benefitted from the French Kiss Lifestyle. Maybe you have sent me an email about how the podcast has impacted your life, or maybe you follow me on Instagram and I shared one quote and it really shifted something for you, or maybe you’re a member of one of my programs.

I love highlighting the women in this community and really showcasing how powerful this work is that we’re doing at French Kiss Life. So today’s Community Spotlight is actually on one of my Slim, Chic, and Savvy clients. Her name is Kelly Uran. She’s amazing. And I’ve known Kelly for a while.

The thing is, with my signature program, which, by the way, the doors are open to enrollment. If you want to check it out, go to slimchicandsavvy.com all the information is there. But when you enroll, you get lifetime access. So some of these women I’ve been with for six and seven years.

And Kelly sent me an email and it really just made me teary because, again, I’ve known her for so long and it’s so rewarding to watch a woman’s growth. So here’s what Kelly had to say.

“Tonya, I hope this email gets to you. It took a while to send because what does one say about something that has changed their life in such a profound way? I was trying to think of short bites you could use on Instagram or that would make beautiful copy to help you grow your business. I want to give back to someone who has given me so much.

So, how has Slim, Chic, and Savvy changed my life in the last five years?” Wow, Kelly, has it been five? Man, okay, I thought it was more like three. We’ve been together as long time, lady. Okay, back to her email.

“I started my dream business. I moved to a city where I wanted to be. Yes, my husband came too, ladies.  I increased my income, got a much better corporate job. I bought my dream home, not someone else’s dream home, my dream home. I met an amazing community of women who unabashedly are going after their dreams. I parent my teenage son differently. I show up in my marriage and I dress so much better.

My dreams are bigger than I could have ever imagined. I learned how to show up for myself and still be kind. I went to Paris and looked out of the window before going to a book reading in a Paris flat and thought, how did I get here? And I knew I was French Kissing Life my way and I smiled.”

Yes, I love getting emails like this. It just makes my heart so, so happy. Kelly, I am proud of you. You created all of this, my friend. You did it, so I hope that you celebrate you today. So if you want to be featured in an upcoming Community Spotlight, send me an email, support@frenchkisslife.com or you can leave me a five-star review on iTunes or you can send me a message on Instagram. I’m pretty much everywhere on the interwebs, but I would love to hear how the French Kiss Lifestyle is impacting your life and possibly highlight you in an upcoming Community Spotlight.

Let’s talk about the joy of commitment. So I want you to think about what comes up for you when you think about committing to something. Now, for some of you, you already have commitments. You’re probably very committed to your spouse or to your kids or to your job or your community. But I’m talking about the commitment to your dreams.

So, I was recently working with a client who came to me because she is wanting to find her love. She is ready to get married. She’s so excited. And on our call, I asked her, how committed are you to finding the love of your life? And she said, “Oh, Tonya, I’m so committed. I am all in.”

Well, fast forward a couple of weeks later, we get on a call and she’s like, “Tonya, I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.” And I was like, “What happened?” She was like, “Well I went on a few dates, it was just really bad. I just don’t think it’s worth it.”  And I asked her, “But I thought you were committed?”

And that, my friend, is the difference between wanting versus committing to something. And, you all, I have to just call myself out on this too. There have been many times in my life where I talked about wanting something, but the moment I hit an obstacle or life got crazy busy, I gave up on it. And the reason being is that I wasn’t that committed.

I’ve come to understand that there is a difference between wanting something and committing to it. There is a different energy and the best way for me to describe it is, a couple of years ago, I was out of the country with my daughter. She was getting medical care. And she had been taken to the hospital and I was supposed to pick her up.

And so we get into the car, and as soon as we get on the road, there’s an accident that’s happened and they’re telling us that it’s going to be hours before we can get through this barricade. And I was like, no, I am committed to picking up my daughter. It’s not even a possibility for me not to get there.

I didn’t simply want to pick her up, I was committed to picking her up. And so I started to ask, can I get a bicycle? Is there someone with a motorcycle that can get through this traffic jam that’s happening? Like, I was committed to be there no matter what. And with that commitment I got there.

Literally, miracles started happening and we were able to get through. They only let us through because I was so adamant, I have to get to my daughter. To me, that is the difference between wanting and committing.

When you want something, first of all, it’s easy to want, right? But committing to something means that if you hit an obstacle, if it becomes hard, if it seems impossible, you’re still going to show up for it, no matter what. You are committed to creating those results for yourself.

And this is why I love the work that I do so much. And Slim, Chic, and Savvy, in the very first week, we make commitments. And these are no-matter-what commitments. Women get really clear on what it is that they want to create and they commit to it. And with that commitment, I have seen crazy miracles happen in a woman’s life; everything from weight loss, moving to new cities, getting new jobs, starting their businesses, writing their books, getting onstage to speak, all of the things that they had wanted for a long time but they had never really committed to.

And I will tell you, there is so much joy in committing to something. For those of you that are married happily, do you remember the moment that you committed to your spouse. There was this joy. All of a sudden, it was like you had focus, you knew where your energy was going and you knew what you were creating because there was a commitment there. Well the same goes for your dreams.

What if you were to marry your dreams, you were to commit to them? Until death do us part, we are together, we’re going to do this thing, through the hard times and the good times, for richer or for poorer, I am committed to my dreams. Like, seriously, that is the kind of mindset that will rock your world.

Recently, I made the big declaration that my dream is to reach a million women in five years. Now it’s more like four and a half years. And I am so committed. I am all in. I don’t know how it is going to happen, but that’s the beauty. You don’t have to know how. If you’re committed, the answers will come.

You take one step and the next answer will appear. You just have to practice believing in your dream and being committed to it. And the moment it gets hard, that is not an excuse to stop. If anything, it’s an excuse to keep going, to believe even harder in what it is that you want to create.

Personally, I find so much joy in commitment, and I never thought I would say that because I used to be someone that was so afraid of commitment, because commitment requires a different version of yourself. It requires that tenacity, that grit, that gumption to show up.

You can sit around your house and want all day long, but when you commit to something, that requires a different kind of action. It requires a different kind of energy. But I want to tell you why I love commitment so much. The first reason is that it takes away options.

Now, for some people, that scares them. We want to have all the options open all the time. But what I have found is that it keeps us very splattered because we’re always weighting, “Well should I do this or should I do that?” When you know what your commitments are, you know what is a strong yes and a strong no.

So, back to my example of reaching a million women in four and a half years, when opportunities come my way or I get ideas, I can look at my commitment and say, “Does this serve the bigger goal? Does this serve the bigger vision?” And if not, it’s just not a good idea right now. So it actually makes life so much more simple.

The other reason I love commitment is that it gives me direction and focus. I know when I wake up in the morning what my commitment is so I rearrange my mind and my actions around that commitment. And then finally, it does make decision-making easier.

Every day, we are faced with so many decisions, so many decisions, but if you know what you’re committed to, when those decisions come up, you will know again what is a strong yes and a strong no. For example, if your commitment is to lose weight, then when the decision of eating a plate of French Fries or a really healthy and nutritious salad comes your way, you know the answer; which decision aligns with your commitment to yourself.

Now, here’s the thing; it’s hard.  It’s uncomfortable. You will have obstacles, my friend, I promise you. And you know what, that is a good thing. There’s a great book out there called The Obstacle Is the Way. And a lot of times, unfortunately, when we hit obstacles, we think that’s a reason to give up. Actually, it’s a reason to keep going because that obstacle is going to require a new version of you. That obstacle is there to help you grow.

And for me, that is the joy of commitment; who I get to become in the process of being committed to something greater than where I am right now. And this is a little bit paradoxical, because what I’m saying is commit to something, commit to the result that you want to create. But the joy, for me, comes from doing that and being unattached, like going all in, I want to create this, and I’m unattached.

And that is a hard practice as well, but for me, there’s a joy in just showing up for the process of commitment. There’s a joy in who I am becoming and committing to something. And so I want you to think about something that you are wanting to create in your life and I want you to ask yourself, how committed are you? On a scale of zero to 10, are you like a five? Because a five is not going to get you there.

A five is going to be, when things get really hard, you’re like, “Oh okay, maybe I don’t want this.” I want you to be committed at a level 10. If you want to grow your business, be a 10 on the commitment scale. If you want to lose weight and create the most vivacious and healthy body you could ever imagine, be a 10 on the commitment scale. If you want to create more fun and joy in your life, be a 10 on the commitment scale.

When you are fully committed, you will create what it is that you want. It’s when you are in that in between of wanting something but not being fully committed to it, that creates so much unnecessary suffering, and two, it causes a division of your energy because you’ve got one foot in it and one foot out.

Commitment is all in, both feet, all limbs, your head, torso, all of you is in that commitment. And I truly believe that this is the beauty of French kissing life. I talk about living artfully and well. Well, to live artfully and well, you commit yourself to something that lights your soul on fire, that no matter what, you are committed to creating that result in your life.

There’s no giving up. There’s no quitting. There’s no backing out because things are hard. You just keep showing up. And when you do that, you will literally blow your mind with the results that you’re able to create in your life.

One last thing that I want to say on this topic is around joie de vivre. Now, hang in there with me.  I know I’m a little all over the place, but listen, joie de vivre, the joy of living. The joy of living is not about being blissed-out all of the time. I think the joy of living is going all in on your life.

And part of that is going all in on your dreams, and not doing it because you think that creating it is going to make your life better. I’m a big believer in making your life amazing now and creating things just because you can, just because it’s going to require you to evolve and to grow, and how fun is that? We can stay stagnant in the comfort zone and in the familiar. We can spend our life wanting to do things. Or we can create from a place of enoughness.

We can commit to our dreams, not because we think that our dreams are going to make our lives better, but just because we’re here to be creative, we’re here to enjoy life. I feel like we’re here to see what we are capable of in this lifetime and to do that from a place of joy is the most amazing way to create your life.

So I want to really encourage you to find that dream that you want to commit to. And it can be anything. You know, we talk about big dreams, but you get to define what a big dream is for you. For some people, a big dream is selling everything and downsizing. For some people, a big dream is making 10 million dollars a year. It doesn’t matter.

You only need to like your reason for wanting whatever it is that you want. That’s the only thing that matters. But I do believe that you are here for a reason. You’re here to create and you’re here to enjoy the creative process. So what are you ready to commit to, my friend?

I want to hear from you, what is your commitment? Find me on Instagram, @schoolofselfimage, you can find me on Facebook at Tonya Leigh, or you can just go to frenchkisslife.com and leave me a comment on the blog.

It is time for a J’adore. This is the part of the show where I get to share something that I love with you. And since I just traveled across the Atlantic and am currently in London, what better thing to share than my favorite luggage.

So, my history with luggage has been immense. I have owned Tumi and Rimowa. I have owned Samsonite, among many other types of luggage. But not too long ago, I started seeing ads on Facebook and on the interwebs for Away. Have you seen it, Away Luggage? It’s like everywhere.

And I loved the simplicity of it and I went on and I read reviews and people were just giving so many accolades to this luggage. And then I looked at the price and I was shocked at how inexpensive it was compared to what I have paid in the past for a suitcase. So I invested in a carryon and a big piece of luggage and I have traveled with it now for a year. And I must say, I am in love with Away.

I love the company’s story, I love their mission, and I actually really love the product. So, the two pieces that I bought was the bigger carryon, and literally, I could pack for a week trip in just this carryon. It has a lot of space and I can even fit it on my little plane from Durango to Dallas or Phoenix, or wherever I’m going.

And then, I also bought the large, which holds a lot of stuff. And so I find myself enjoying packing for a trip because I have all of the essentials to make it simple and effective, which is known as elegance.

Now, I must tell you, this is not fancy luggage. We’re not talking Luis Vuitton or Rimowa, but it also doesn’t have a fancy price tag. This is good quality luggage at an affordable price. And as someone who has traveled a lot and I have spent a lot of money on luggage, what I can tell you is that I would just get so disheartened every time I would see my bag come out of baggage claim and it was scraped and looked like it had been through World War Three.

So for myself, I’ve decided I want good pieces, but I also want pieces that are practical and that I don’t get sick to my stomach if they get a scratch, which is why I’m also in love with Away. So if you are interested in upgrading your luggage, go to frenchkisslife.com/away and you will get $20 off of your first purchase.

I want a lot of travel in our futures, my friend, and I want us to travel in style. Thank you for tuning into this episode. I will see you in the next one.

If you enjoyed this episode and you want to dive even deeper into the French Kiss lifestyle, let’s start with a makeover; a mindset makeover. You can download my free training, The 3 Mindset Makeovers Every Woman Needs by visiting FrenchKissLife.com/mindset – because after all, mindset is the new black.