Your Commitments to Yourself
We all make commitments everyday. Commitments to clients, customers, business associates, family, friends, and the list goes on. What about the commitments you make with yourself.
Making commitments is easy. Meeting and fulfilling them is another story.
Keep your commitments. It’s that simple. Keeping your commitments is the highest measure of your personal integrity. When you meet commitments you have made on a regular basis you become the person of high esteem, character, and value others look up to. You feel accomplished, and successful. Because no matter what the commitment, how large or small, you succeeded in meeting it. You have won, and any victory, no matter what size is still a victory.
Most commitments you make involve others. But what about the commitments you make to yourself. Last year you committed to lose the excess weight you have been carrying around.
Did that happen?
Where you successful in meeting that commitment?
What about when you bought that health club membership and committed to go workout a least three times a week.
Have you stood by that commitment?
I know on a personal note, that while I maintain a very high personal level of commitment to others, the commitments I make to myself are the first ones I break. This comes from our unselfish nature to put others ahead of ourselves. Especially if they are family and loved ones.
So how can we make and keep better commitments to ourselves without breaking commitments to others?
First, don’t confuse commitments with dreams, hopes, or wishes.
If you want to lose 30 pounds, don’t make a commitment that I will lose 30 pounds in 3 months. It’s not realistic. For a commitment to become something you are willing to do whatever it takes to stand by it, the commitment must be realistic. If you commit to yourself that you will avoid the drive thru and eat green leafy vegetables twice a day for the next 30 days that is realistic. That is something you can get behind and commit to do. That becomes the vehicle to meet our commitment to lose excess weight.
If we commit to exercise three times a week and get behind it 100%, we choose to be creative with our schedule. Allow time to go to the health club, walk up the stairs in our building at lunch, or get up early and walk a couple of times around the block.
First rule of commitments.....be realistic.
I know that on a personal scale this holds true for me with my writing. A few years ago I committed to myself that I would write one-hour everyday, I started out great. Everyday I would rise an hour earlier, and begin writing. It was perfect, the house was quiet, and I was fresh and creative, not tired or worn-out from the day’s activities. This worked perfectly for a few weeks, but then I started to slip. I was sleeping later; I was trying to write at later times in the day or evening. I found that at best I was only writing 2 or 3 times a week, I was frustrated, and it showed in my writing. I realized that I was not living up to the commitment I made with myself. I had let myself down. This of course led to further frustration, anxiety, and less quality writing. I had failed in my commitment to myself because in reviewing my schedule it was not realistic.
Failure can be a rude awakening, and if accepted can be a lifelong road of disaster. But if we realize that any failure no matter of its size is just a turning point, we can adjust course and keep moving toward keeping the commitments we make with others and ourselves.
We always get some sign that we are slipping on our commitment, and can adjust accordingly before we hit the wall of failure. If we would just pay attention to those signs and proactively review the commitments we make we would realize if they are realistic.
Second rule of commitments.......see rule #1.
We often juggle many commitments in the air at the same time, if we pay attention to the warning signs we can avoid falling short on some commitments. Some may say that it is easier to not make any commitments you can’t keep easily. This may be true, but if you go through life not stretching yourself with commitments that force you to reach into new territory, you will remain in the same place, doing the same thing, and getting the same results you have always got.
When you make true, realistic commitments that you stand behind 100%, and then achieve. You feel the satisfaction of success. You grow into a person of high esteem and value. You become the one that others look to as a person of high integrity.
Any commitment we make with ourselves must be realistic. Never confuse commitments with dreams, hopes, or wishes. When you make a realistic commitment it will become something that you can get behind 100% and keep no matter what obstacles life may throw at you.
If you can’t keep commitments with yourself, you will never be able to keep commitments with others.
