How to Coach Yourself and Others How to Influence, Persuade and Motivate | Page 141

To recognize and resist the undue influence of consistency pressures upon our compliance decisions--we can listen for signals coming from two places within us--our stomach or "gut reaction" and our heart.  A bad feeling in the pit of the stomach may appear when we realize that we are being pushed by commitment and consistency pressures to agree to requests we know we don't want to perform.  Our heart may bother us when it is not clear that an initial commitment was right. At such points it is meaningful to ask a crucial question, "Knowing what I know now, if I could go back, would I have made the same commitment?" 141