The Art of Commitment

“Grow up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do.  It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.”

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

Here’s a little secret:  The results we achieve in our business are a direct result of what we are committed to. Crazy, right?

One of the people I coach in business development spends a lot of his time struggling with his relationship with his team members.

“They are difficult to get along with and so I end up spending an inordinate amount of time taking care of problems,” he said.

After that statement, I asked him why he is so committed to struggling with his team members. He bristled a bit and argued that he was not committed to it. I paused for a moment and so did he. Then it dawned on him. He apologized for cutting our meeting short, but he assured me that he would get back to me.

Two days later, there was an email from him in my inbox.

He said he discovered he was spending too much time trying to “fix” team members because doing that allowed him to ignore the most important issue in his business: increasing revenue.

Think about it.

Your results are nothing more than unconscious intentions made manifest. We become what we think about. We can’t continue to live with the idea that, somehow, our results are different from our intentions. It’s a matter of becoming 100% responsible for the results we achieve and understanding their achievement—or lack thereof—is simply the result of our unconscious intentions.

Think about an issue that you are struggling with within your business.  Ask yourself, “Why am I committed to struggling with this?” It will feel like an awkward question at first, but if you play it through you will start to see you are struggling in order to seek pleasure or avoid pain.

Can you change what you are committed to?

My student came back a few days later saying he decided he was committed to serving his team members instead of struggling to fix them. It’s difficult to take 100% responsibility for everything in our lives, but it is also freeing.

What can you commit to today? Real commitment, the kind that shows up in your actions. The kind of commitment that creates spectacular outcomes one small victory at a time. Write them down, structure your daily goals around them and make them happen through deliberate action. Do this and you will master the art of commitment.

Living Every Minute,

Dr. Tim