Are you committed?

There is a difference between being committed to doing a thing and making a commitment to doing a thing.  Do you know what it is?

Making a commitment is simply agreeing to do something. It is a verbal contract  between you and another person. You are telling them that a certain thing will occur, usually by a certain point. It is specific and measurable and definitely has the potential to be a powerful tool for mature responsible adults to use in getting things done.

Yet, if you are not committed to this agreement it is worthless and will most likely be broken. Perhaps you just agreed to make the other person happy and you really have no or very little interest in seeing this thing through. Maybe some challenge or obstacle will come up and you will decide that this thing is too hard or not worth the effort. Or you will be too busy or may be you will use the excuse of not feeling well to avoid keeping your word.

Being committed to a thing, on the other hand, is like a thing of beauty. It turns you into an unstoppable force of nature as far as that thing is concerned. When you are fully committed to something, no matter what it is, there is an almost palpable energy about you. There is never any doubt that you will do what it is that you say you will. You know inside yourself that no shit no kidding, no matter what, you will accomplish this goal. Nothing will get in your way. Obstacles and challenges have no chance of stopping or even really slowing you down. And anything that does get in your way you will steam roll right through until success is yours.

A commitment that you are truly committed to becomes a thing that you will accomplish or die trying. It is also the only commitment truly worth making. It is a guarantee. Everything else is just a maybe.

How does one become committed to a a goal rather than just making a commitment to see that goal happen? Just like every other important powerful thing that a person does or can do, it comes down to simply making a choice to do so.

You can agree to take the trash out after dinner or you can commit to it. When you agree, other things might get in your way. You might fall asleep at your chair or you might get caught up in watching the television and forget. When you commit nothing is getting in your way. After dinner you will get up and take out the trash.

You can make a commitment to stop being late to work or you can be committed to being on time from this day forward.  If you just make the commitment, you may oversleep or leave later than you are supposed to. If you are committed to being on time you will take whatever steps are necessary to get there on time.

You can promise yourself that you will start taking steps to improve your life or you can actually commit to doing so.

Arch-nemesis

Chances are, if you are like most people, there are other people and things in your life that you do not like. But, if I were to ask you who your worst enemy is what would you say? Would you tell me about the evils of the company that holds your mortgage note? Or maybe you would sell me on the idea that your boss is the devil. Maybe your spouse's best friend or some co-worker drives you up the wall. Perhaps you think the biggest negative influence in your life is the government.

There may be unpleasant things about each of these things I mentioned. But, I promise you, your worst enemy, your arch-nemesis, the greatest foe of your life, is you. There are outside influences that affect your life. They are real. But they serve as challenges and things to overcome. But it is what you think and do about those challenges that determines the course of your life. The only limits that exist are those that you allow to be placed upon you.

For example, the bank putting your home into foreclosure isn't something designed to ruin your life. They are not out to get you. For them it is simply business. When you fail to make the payments that you have agreed to make, it is not their fault or their problem when the foreclosure process starts. They are committed to making money and to following whatever course of action they need to in order to continue making money.

We want to blame others and make things their fault. It is not like the bank tricked you. You have a contract with them that clearly states that you owe them a specific amount of money and how much you are to pay them and when. It is common knowledge that when a "homeowner" does not make their payments they do not get to keep their home. It is not a surprise that there is a consequence to not making payments. Vilifying the bank over this is not fair to them

However, it IS your fault that the payments did not get made. Letting things happen in such a way that you did not create the additional income required to keep your payments up to date is your fault. It might have been a tremendous task to undertake but I guarantee, if you were fully committed to it that it was possible for you to find a way to come up with the money necessary to keep your home. But it is easier to blame the bank.

Let's say you take your car out for a drive and get a ticket for speeding. After the fact, it is pretty common to act with outrage and to blame the officer who wrote the ticket. Why? He was just doing his job. You know that there are consequences for your actions. He did not generate the circumstances that caused you to get a ticket. You did.

Every circumstance in your life for which you blame someone else for messing up your day or trying to destroy you is really a circumstance in which you play the victim. You tell yourself a lie that the other person took away your power. The truth of the matter is that no one can take your power away from you. You have to give it to them. You are directly responsible for nearly every bad circumstance in your life. How you react to what happens to you determines what you will get out of life. Blaming someone else creates an external face to wear the mask of evil. But the truth is, they are just an excuse that you use to hold yourself back so you can validate your reasons for not being successful.

Be honest with yourself. Stop blaming others. Take responsibility for the choices and mistakes that you have made that have had less than favorable results. Once you do this you can learn from those mistakes and begin to move forward, making new and better choices. Then instead of making excuses for failure you can start succeeding in all aspects of your life.