"Commitment is Key" – How to Stick to Your Intentions – Renaisearch – Andrew Lueth
Commitment is Key
Todays Episode is about Commitment. Why it is crucial, what it takes to develop it and how commiting yourself to something will keep you going, no matter what.
I know how it feels… you intented to do something, to start a project, to learn something new, to do something for a loved one or to start a business on the side.
You start out just fine, the idea about doing it feels amazing and in your moment of absolute
motivation you promise to do it.
but are you really committed?
When the time to really start and stick to your “promise” comes around or the first challenge arises is when your level of commitment really shows.
Is what you promised yourself or someone else to do, really that important to you, that you are ready to make sacrifices for it, to keep going through thick and thin so to say?
Sooner or later you will come to a point where you feel like not doing it, like procrastinating and doing it later, tommorow, next week, next month or… never.
Well, as mentioned earlier, I know that feeling myself.
I actually feel quite unmotivated and would like to do something else as I am preparing this
episode right now… its kind of hard to stay focused and I even start thinking to myself, that it would not be that bad to do it tommorow or to “JUST ONCE” not release an episode on monday evening, that ONE EXCEPTION would not be too fatal… but NO.
I commited myself to releasing one episode every week on monday evening. And here I go.
Commitment is what turns a nice idea or good intention into real action. until you are not committed, you will keep entertaining this nice ide or great vision inside your head, enjoying it mentally but never putting it into real action.
As a famous and very wise saying goes:
“Intent reveals desire; Action reveals commitment.”
famous and very wise saying
So, what do I mean when I talk about Commitment?
Committing yourself to something means that you keep going, no matter the outside circumstances or your mood at the moment.
A Commitment is always a decision. You make a kind of meta-decision, you decide once and for all from a higher and broader perspective, which makes every following small decision in the moment unnecessary, because you already made all of those decisions upfront when making that meta-decision.
Making a real Commitment requires you to know why you are really doing something, what the vision and deeper meaning behind it are, why it is fundamentally important to you or somebody else.
Here are some examples of commiting yourself to something:
Lets say you decide to go vegetarian. You really feel that this is important, and you know why you do it – because you believe it to be fundamentally wrong to kill animals to eat them and you stand up for that. you commit yourself to that cause, and make a meta-decision:
from now on, you will no longer eat meat. thats it. You made one decision upfront for every decision to come… from now on, when someone offers you meat or you have to decide what to eat at the restaurant, you dont need to think about your answer anymore, because that decision was already made earlier.
A wedding is also a very common kind of commitment. You and your partner make a commitment to each other and decide, that you will stay together “till death dos you part” and be loyal to each other, and spirit and flesh.
From there on, ideally at least, when each one of you is faced with the temptation of sleeping with somebody else, you would not have to think about how to act – you are already commited and made that decision upfront. You would also know how to act in harder
times that may make you want to leave because that would be easier – you stick through that and keep going, because you committed yourself to something that you know is worth the effort and you see the deeper meaning behind it.
Once you are really committed, no outside circumstances will stop you from pursuing that which you are committed to. If one particluar approach fails, it will not keep you from pursuing. It may require you to change your approach, to go about it in a different way – maybe you have to change the approach quite often, but being committed to the outcome or the cause, that is not really important.
As Tony Robbins says:
“Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.”
Tony Robbins
One who is not committed to his decisions may try one approach and if it fails, gives up and doesnt stick to his decision.
The uncommited one you could say, may be “committed” to his approach and flexbible in his decisions, changing his mind as often as the approach may fail.
To conclude todays episode, i will leave you with something to reflect upon:
Is there an area in your life where you always seem to fall off track? Where you can really move something as long as you are motivated, but when you dont feel like it or a challenge arises… you procrastinate so long that you eventually forget about it?
Think about it, and ask yourself:
“Am I really committed to doing it?”
“Do I know why I really do that, is it really meaningful to me, do I know the deeper meaning
of doing it?”
“If not, am I ready to really commit myself to it?”
“What Commitment am i ready to make?”
“What decisions would be made upfront by that commitment?”
“If i am not ready to commit myself to it, am i better off not doing it at all?”
When confronted with a challenge, the committed heart will search for a solution. The undecided heart searches for an escape.
Andy Andrews
Renaisearch 