A lack of commitment stops everything
The good news is, commitment is a choice.
So, are you ready?
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Tag: commitment
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Commitment Gambling
There is no free lunch, nor is there free commitment.
Commitment isn’t free.
Saying yes may feel “freeing,” but with each one comes with responsibility. Those obligations take time. Each represents a promise to someone.
Each commitment you make uses your honor as collateral. As they say in hip-hop, “word is bond.” More than money or any other tangible resource, a person’s “word” gets them access to many things.
Taking a bet on committing and coming through is a surefire way to build this type of capital.
Be careful. It takes a lifetime to build your honor and only a moment to destroy it.
Honor is a sacred thing. Treat it that way.
Don’t commit too much to new ideas
New ideas are great. It means that there is a project on the horizon, and shipping projects feel good.
The newness of an idea is fun. The hard part, though, is turning that curiosity into something finished. That involves a process.
My old process might sound familiar to you. It included slicing large blocks of time out of my calendar where I was going to do the work. From there, I would sit down, and try to do 5 to 10 hours of work on this one idea.
Sounds good in theory, but it was awful in practice. The amount of time wasn’t an issue. The amount of pre-allocated commitment was. I made a promise that was too hard to keep to myself.
When you run into promises that are too hard to follow, it’s easier not to start on the project then fail to hold your “word.” I didn’t know it at the planning stages, but just by committing that amount of time to that idea in huge chunks: I sowed the seeds of the project’s defeat.
A lot of promising things didn’t ship because I over-committed.
o I recently discovered a process that allows me to take on ideas, and ship them with a higher completion rate. It requires going the other direction, promising less time.
It sounds counter-intuitive, but committing to something small makes starting much easier.
If I plan on working on something for two minutes, well, it’s that much easier to get going.
So, committing to small is an excellent ignition point – what about sustaining that little commitment better and how do I make sure that I don’t work on it forever?
Well, over the next two days, we will talk about just those topics.
For now, think about how you can lower the amount of time commitment to the ideas you have. A smaller commitment means more tasks complete.
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Figure Out Commitment
I don’t think any of this works if I don’t make the effort.
Commitment is just as important as strategy. I could have every type of consultant in the world come by and give me advice, but if I don’t commit to anything, all the advice in the world means nothing.
If there is bad advice, then if I commit, then I get a lesson. Not much kills you. Not much ends your life. But there are many lessons if there is a commitment to the goal.
You can improve if there is a strategy in place, but you manage that improvement by understanding that you have to commit to everything in front of you. It is difficult because we multitask and aren’t usually told that we have the power to say no. But when we do and we understand our commitment, engage with it, and make it happen, our opportunities will increase.
No half measures.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 