Break Free from Attachment and Get Committed to Results

Life by Design

Hosts Jessilyn and Brian Persson talk about the differences in being attached to a pathway versus being committed to one in today’s episode. In their words, attached is a one-path solution whereas committed is a multi-path solution. Is the way we get to a goal more important than the result itself? This is what they explore today, investigating how this mindset can affect colleagues, friendships, and even family.

The three takeaways that Jessilyn highlights define how committed is a more flexible and freeing way to achieve a goal. Being committed means focusing on the outcome, it means moving on, and it means deciding if presumed expectations in life are meaningful. What sorts of things do we get attached to and how does that manifest in our lives? How can we shift to a committed perspective instead? Are there things we are clinging to that aren’t serving our journey the way they should? Join Jessilyn and Brian as they break down what committed versus attached can mean to relationships and outcomes in our lives.

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Transcript

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:09] Welcome to the Life by Design podcast with your hosts, Jessilyn and Brian Persson. We help couples create the wealth they desire by sharing our stories of how we broke through the barriers to create our wealth.

Brian Persson: [00:00:19] We are the creators of the Discover Define Design framework, which supports you in resolving conflict and communicating better. Recently, we've created a branch of that teaching we are calling Relationships, Riches and Real Estate. We have a lot of personal experience, and there is a lot of demand from couples who want to get on the same page so that they can powerfully invest in real estate.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:42] Our topic today is committed versus attached. So what do we mean when we say committed versus attached?

Brian Persson: [00:00:50] Right. So attached, we can think of it as a one-path solution. There's only one way to do a particular thing. Committed is a multi-path solution. There is multiple ways to do the same thing. So one example is just doing dishes. We have some stories of our own ways of doing dishes. And we have one we want to share about some friends of ours. But attached would look like having only one way to load the dishwasher, and that would be the glasses have to go here, the dishes have to go there, whereas committed would be the dishes have to get clean if they run, if they get run through the dishwasher.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:31] Right. Right. Yeah. No, I remember a story with the good friends of ours that came over probably about a month ago now. We're having dinner, and he was very kindly loading our dishwasher, and you could tell he was a little hesitant of whether he was putting them in the right spot. And I was just kind of like, yeah, whatever, load them how you want. And I know his fiance, he's like, well, at home I have to load them a very specific way. And I remember looking at his fiance and kind of smiling, and you could tell, she's like, well, yeah, that's how they get done. And you, I remember you went to her and you're like, well, if you came home one day and the dishes were all clean and put away, would you be happy? She goes, yeah, he goes, would you have cared how he loaded them in the dishwasher at that time? And she thought about it. She goes, no. It's like exactly.

Brian Persson: [00:02:19] Yeah. Before that conversation she was attached to a particular way of doing the dishes. And I hope I brought her around to being committed to doing the dishes.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:27] And more so the fact that you can get a lot more help from your fiance if you just let him trial and error, do it his way, see if it works, maybe correct him along the way if you have to, but...

Brian Persson: [00:02:40] Yeah, attached is about how and committed is about the outcome.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:45] Yeah.

Brian Persson: [00:02:46] So the path that you get there doesn't matter when you're committed. It's just that you set the outcome, you set the results, and did you achieve that outcome and that results?

Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:56] Yeah, exactly. And that's our first takeaway where we say to be committed means to focus on the outcome, not the steps. And I know it's very clear, laundry, I think laundry is a big one for a lot of, at least for women, who I've spoken to and even myself, I remember there was a time where I had to fold. I had to do all the laundry. I had to fold. It had to be done a very specific way. And I know I've got girlfriends who are the same. And then I learned, well, you know, does it, does it, I get you and I get the boys to help do laundry now. And in the end it's kind of like, well, it's done. I didn't have to do it. It gave me space I needed. Does it really matter? I mean, if there's a specific way, like I like towels folded a certain way because they fit, otherwise they don't fit in our tiny little linen closet. But other than that, it's kind of like, hey, our ten year old, go do your laundry, he takes his basket upstairs, and if he rolls them in a ball and shoves them in the corner, well, he's the one wearing the wrinkly clothes to school.

Brian Persson: [00:03:54] Yeah.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:55] Because he does do that.

Brian Persson: [00:03:56] Yeah he does. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so basically what you did is you took away the path to get to that perfectly folded towel, and all you did with our kids was set the outcome.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:08] Yeah.

Brian Persson: [00:04:08] The towel must be folded this way. Right? Do it however you want, take as long as you want, you're folding the towel, and this is the way that the end result of that towel has to be folded.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:20] Exactly.

Brian Persson: [00:04:21] Yeah, yeah. So I think we, in our careers and probably most everybody out there gets very attached to either their career or a way of doing something about their career.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:34] Yeah.

Brian Persson: [00:04:35] And I know we did. In fact, I would say we got very detached from our career and we were not committed to it at all. And that looked like you having burn out.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:46] Yeah.

Brian Persson: [00:04:46] And that looked like me being disenchanted with the position I was in at that time years ago. And what happened was you got burnt out, you quit. An...