Commitment Isn’t Magic
Earlier this week, I had a conversation with a colleague about how results are directly linked to what you are committed to. She had just shared her frustrations about not seeing new growth in her business.
The thing about commitment is that you likely will have a hard time seeing how it relates to results in the area where you feel stuck… because you are stuck. To get un-stuck, it’s helpful to look at commitment in an area of your life that you feel is working to really see the relationship.
In this case, I asked my colleague what part of her life she had a “ride or die” commitment for. It was an easy answer: her husband and their kids. I asked her to look deeper: What exactly was it that she was committed to when it came to her family? She distinguished that it was about having a life with them filled with joy and love.
Beautiful, right?
I then asked her, even with a beautiful commitment like joy and love, how family went for her, day to day. Was it always joyful and loving? Perfectly, her children (now at home because of the quarantine) came bursting through her office door, making a ton of noise, at that very moment.
Commitments don’t magically make life easier.
My colleague’s biggest commitment is to her family, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have days where her children frustrate her or she gets upset with her husband.
You may have a commitment to your health, but you will still have days where you crave ordering that pizza and eating that carton of ice cream.
You may have a commitment to your spirituality, but you will still have days where you skip prayer or sleep in, rather than meditate.
I draw attention to these examples to highlight the misconception that just because you have a meaningful commitment to something, doesn’t mean that you will magically never have issues or frustrations in that area of your life ever again.
In fact, the reason commitment is so important is because those feelings will always exist. They don’t go away. Commitment matters for that day your kids burst into your office during an important client meeting, so that you remember to bring love and joy even if in the moment you perhaps bring a temper. How does this apply to what’s happening in your world?
This is not to say that sometimes you won’t get it right, or it won’t be perfect. Imagine that your Commitment is like your North Star. Your commitment is your reminder of where you are actually heading towards, regardless of how you woke up feeling today.
Going back to my colleague for a minute, in this conversation it was easy to see that when it came to her business, she just hadn’t chosen a commitment sufficient to moving through her feelings about it. And because the commitment wasn’t strong enough, she gave in to the frustrations of daily prospecting or the fears of people not calling her back. It was time to hone in on what made building this business worth it to her.
Before I wrap things up for today, I want you to consider one more idea: You always have a commitment to something—whether it’s distinguished or not.
For the first time in my life, I hired a personal trainer in December. Why did I avoid working with one for so long? Well, when I was little, I had a ballet teacher make fun of me for being fat. Since that day, I was committed to holding onto the story that I was fat and stupid, and that if someone saw me workout, they would make fun of me. I wasn’t necessarily calling it a commitment, but with the work I’ve done with my own coach and therapist, I am now clear that that’s what it was.
Taking on a trainer required that I do the coaching work, the healing work, and the self-love work necessary to choose a commitment to my well-being over a commitment to that sad, old story I was hanging onto.
The bottom line? Commitments matter. They are not the magical fix to never feeling frustrated or upset again. Instead, your commitments are what will help you see something through – regardless of the frustrations that burst in, along the way.
And remember, you are always committed to something.