Why 98% Is Harder Than 100% (And Why 100% Changes Everything)

There’s an uncomfortable truth most of us spend years avoiding, and it’s this:

You don’t fail because you lack motivation.You fail because you leave yourself a way out.

We dress it up as balance. We call it moderation. We tell ourselves we’re being sensible.

But more often than not, what we’re really doing is keeping an escape hatch quietly propped open, just in case things get hard, boring, uncomfortable, or inconvenient.

And that escape hatch is exactly why so many goals never quite land.

I recently watched a talk that landed this idea with brutal clarity: the notion that 98% commitment is far harder than 100%. At first glance, it sounds backwards. Surely being “mostly committed” is healthier? Surely leaving room for flexibility is wise?

In practice, 98% is exhausting.

100% is oddly peaceful.

Once you see it, you start spotting it everywhere, in weight loss, in work, in relationships, in business, in the quiet ways we half-commit to the very things we say we want most.

The Comforting Lie of Moderation

We love moderation because it feels adult.

“I’m cutting down.” “I’m being more mindful.” “I’m doing better than I was.” “I’m mostly consistent.”

All of that sounds reasonable. Responsible, even.

But moderation has a hidden cost: it never stops asking questions.

Every day becomes a negotiation. Every decision requires mental energy. Every choice is weighed, justified, explained.

Should I? Can I? Does this count? Is today different? I’ll start again tomorrow…

That low-level chatter is where goals quietly die. Not in dramatic failures, but in erosion. Decision fatigue. A thousand tiny compromises that feel harmless on their own and devastating in aggregate.

100% commitment removes the conversation.

And that’s why people misunderstand it.

They hear “100%” and imagine rigidity, obsession, white-knuckling, a joyless existence powered by willpower alone. But that’s not what healthy 100% looks like at all.

Healthy 100% isn’t about force. It’s about finality.

Why Weight Loss Exposes This Better Than Anything Else

If you want to see the 98% problem in its purest form, look at weight loss.

People often say:

“I’ve tried everything and nothing works.”

What they usually mean is:

“I’ve tried lots of things temporarily.”

Here’s the question most people never ask themselves:

If you knew this was how you were going to eat for the rest of your life, would you still choose it?

If the honest answer is no, your nervous system already knows this is a phase. And when the body senses something is temporary, it doesn’t cooperate, it waits.

That’s why diets “work”… and then stop. Why motivation fades. Why old habits creep back in the moment life applies pressure.

Because there was never a decision. Only an experiment.

100% commitment in weight loss doesn’t mean misery. It doesn’t mean never enjoying food again or living like a monk. It means removing the psychological exit.

Not: “I’ll do this until I lose weight.”

But: “This is just how I eat now.”

That shift alone changes everything.

The Real Problem With ‘Off’

This is where people push back.

“But I need an off switch.”

Do you?

Or do you need relief from the constant effort of self-negotiation?

Because most “off” days aren’t actually restful. They’re chaotic. You don’t enjoy them fully, and you don’t relax into them. There’s guilt, justification, and a quiet promise to fix things tomorrow.

That’s not freedom.That’s low-grade stress with snacks.

100% removes the drama.

There’s no moral weight to food anymore. No inner debate. No sense of failure.

Just clarity.

The Point of No Return (Where 100% Actually Begins)

There’s another piece to this that rarely gets talked about.

100% commitment usually begins at the point where you can’t easily turn back.

Not because you’re reckless. But because you’ve removed the psychological safety net.

Think about the moments in your life that genuinely changed you. Not the intentions or the plans, the irreversible actions.

Ploughing real money into a business idea when part of you was terrified. Moving to a new city or country where going “home” would feel like retreat. Buying a suit five times too small, not as motivation porn, but as a quiet contract with yourself: I will become the person who fits this.

Those moments matter because they close the back door.

And when the back door closes, something extraordinary happens:

Your energy stops leaking into contingency planning.

Why ‘No Way Back’ Creates Calm

As long as retreat remains an option, part of your mind keeps one eye on it.

What if this doesn’t work? What if I need an exit? What if I change my mind?

That constant background monitoring drains momentum.

But once you pass the point of no return, once going back would cost more than going forward, the questions stop.

Not because the fear disappears, but because the decision has already been made.

This is why people often say: “Once I’d done it, I actually felt calmer.”

100% commitment doesn’t remove fear. It removes indecision.

And indecision is far more exhausting than effort.

Work and Business: The Same Rule, Higher Stakes

This exact pattern quietly destroys momentum in work.

People say they’re serious. They say they want growth. They say they’re committed.

But underneath is often:

“As long as this doesn’t cost me too much comfort, certainty, or identity.”

That’s 98%.

98% looks like: Starting projects but hesitating to scale. Learning endlessly instead of executing. Tweaking instead of committing. Waiting for confidence before acting.

100% looks very different, and much quieter.

It’s when you stop asking: “Is this going to work?”

And start acting as if: “This is what I do now.”

Momentum loves certainty. Hesitation starves it.

The Business Analogy We All Avoid

Imagine hiring someone who says:“I’m 98% committed to this role.”

You wouldn’t debate it. You’d laugh.

Not because you expect perfection, but because commitment isn’t about effort, it’s about removing doubt.

Your own nervous system works the same way.

If part of you is still half-expecting to quit, pivot, or retreat, you’ll keep one foot on the brake. Progress will feel sticky. Heavy. Inconsistent.

When you remove the brake, not by pushing harder, but by deciding, things move.

Not magically. Mechanically.

The Weight-Loss Suit Moment (Again)

The suit analogy matters because it’s about identity, not pressure.

When you buy clothes for the body you intend to live in, not the one you’re temporarily tolerating, your thinking shifts.

You stop saying: “If this works…”

And start saying:“When this works.”

That’s when behaviour changes without force.

The body responds very differently to certainty than it does to hope.

Why 100% Feels Safer Than 98%

Here’s the paradox.

98% feels safer because you think you’re protecting yourself from failure.

But what you’re actually doing is keeping failure alive as an option.

100% says:“This is happening.”

And once that’s decided, anxiety drops.

The brain craves certainty more than comfort. This is why people who finally succeed often say: “Once I stopped treating it like an experiment, everything changed.”

They didn’t get tougher. They got clearer.

Personal Goals Are No Exception

Fitness. Writing. Sobriety. Health. Boundaries. Relationships.

All of them collapse under partial commitment.

Not because you’re weak, but because ambivalence is exhausting.

100% isn’t about pushing yourself harder.

It’s about no longer fighting yourself.

And when you stop fighting yourself, energy becomes available for living.

A Quiet Truth From My Own Life

Without getting specific, I’ll say this:

The biggest shifts I’ve seen in my own work didn’t come from grinding harder, learning more, or finding better systems.

They came when I stopped hedging.

When I stopped treating parts of my life like trials. When I removed the idea of “going back”. When consistency replaced intensity.

Momentum didn’t arrive loudly. It arrived reliably.

And reliability beats brilliance every time.

What 100% Actually Is (And Isn’t)

100% does not mean: Perfection, Obsession, Never enjoying yourself, Being harsh with yourself.

It means: No internal negotiations, No temporary mindset, No fantasy escape routes, No self-sabotage dressed up as balance

It’s choosing once, properly, and then living.

A Mindful Perspective

Mindfulness isn’t about floating above life in a calm haze.

It’s about being fully in it.

Baking teaches this better than most things: Once the dough is mixed, you can’t un-mix it. Once it’s proved, you don’t panic, you work with what’s there. Once it’s in the oven, interference makes things worse.

There’s a moment in every bake where you stop fiddling and let heat do its job.

Life works the same way.

At some point, you stop poking the dough.

A Gentle Invitation

If any of this resonates, if you’re tired of negotiating with yourself, half-starting things, or living as if your life is provisional, here’s a simple invitation:

Slow down. Do something with your hands. Create something real.

Bread, food, process, presence, they have a way of clarifying what actually matters. Of grounding decisions. Of replacing intensity with consistency.

That’s what The Mindful Baker has always been about.

Not self-improvement. Not perfection.

Just showing up fully, and letting the process do its work.

The Question That Matters

Here’s the only question worth asking:

If you knew this was how things were going to be from now on, would you still choose it?

If the answer is yes, you’re ready.

If the answer is no, don’t beat yourself up. Just stop pretending you’re committed and get honest instead.

Honesty is the starting point of real change.

The Closing Truth

When there’s no way back, there’s finally only one way to go.

Forward.

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