Commitment- A lot lies between making it and consistently keeping it.

             Commitment –A lot lies between making it and consistently keeping it.

    

       As soon as we are woken up by our routine morning alarm, we pull ourselves out of our warm cosy bed, re-activate our energies, kick start our mind, plunge in action while juggling with our daily chores and march out to conquer our dreams/ goals/ targets. Woman or man, planned or unplanned, routine or not, voluntarily or obligatory, casually or formally; we steer our life using our mind, body, soul and energy. While enjoying our independence and free will, we always gravitate towards whatever we think and feel is important to us. Accordingly, we choose and shortlist our action items/ goals/ areas where we are tangibly ready to commit/ dedicate ourselves. “Dreamers and achievers” are many around us and the one thing that they all have in common is the “Long-term steady Commitment” that they display while achieving their goal. With prudence, complete devotion and only if we want to, we all can produce that stimulating ability… make a rock-solid commitment. May it be towards our own thoughts, our choices, our actions, our plans or our relationships…. Commitment becomes necessary. Don't you think?

       

         Bigger the Goal… Unshakeable the Self-Commitment needs to be.

           Knowing our own strengths and weakness (holding no denial blocks) perfectly well, we mostly choose to handle our personal and professional commitments differently. It is interesting to notice how different colourful people look at their commitments and how they work towards fulfilling them. I like to study and connect with the fascinating human behaviour patterns that I come across and I almost always broadly group them up (in 3) in my mind… Quite a few people seem to effortlessly keep all their commitments with precision, care and ease (in and out), while many others may vary with their performance depending on the "importance" of the commitment for them (easy-going and slow-moving at home while prompt and efficient at work) and then there some of them who tend to struggle with their time management and organising skills each day, resulting in delay, inconsistency and rush at the last moment while keeping up with their commitments. Any chosen approach is acceptable as far as the commitment is met in time!

 

           Whatever we commit (say we would do) will have the “value” only if we consistently stick to our words and actions. Our individual commitment (without buying too much time) should be the “glued and focussed path” we must opt to hang on to without jumping on and off or easily surrendering to our distractions or growing out of it.

           I look at “Commitment” as the indispensable quality that each one of us need to inescapably master. It’s over said by now that it is all inside us and up to us… isn’t the truth as simple as this: - the moment we realise and identify that “Commitment-Kick”, the long, tiring or boring efforts start becoming enjoyable and manageable. While acting on a bigger prominent goal, it must be like the solemn oath that we take for self which extracts our studious nature, reminds and directs us to stay firm and true towards our goal. I sincerely believe that self-discipline plays a monumental role when it comes to “Keeping a commitment”. Bigger commitments in life demands in-depth planning and a focussed approach backed with agility. Smaller and daily commitments often fall a prey to our inability to prioritize, too much to do with very less time, keep buying time using variety of reasons, and I am sure you would agree… “laziness” and “forgetfulness” always topping the list.We often say, “will do it later” and that “later” is “later forgotten”. This habit if carried to work could pose a concern/ threat. To be honest, I do find myself dodging with some of these devils almost each day and even fondly getting trapped into them sometimes. After all, the daily commitments could be postponed here and there… what matters is that the commitments are met in a decent time frame and don’t require frequent reminders. Don’t you think?

               Honest Commitment demands a Faithful-Bonded Support

          Making a major commitment (personal or professional) is of course one big task, but, consistently keeping up with it is far more demanding as it expects us to be bonded to our goal and show regular responsible behaviour. A lot many factors (besides the usual devils that I mentioned above) like our passion, efforts, energy level, interest-meter, dedication, determination, focus level, attitude, concentration, confidence and much more lie between making a commitment and consistently keeping it. They are like the many team members of a project (set goal), producing mixed efficiencies, they must largely come together and work as a team, consistently putting combined unfaltering efforts to hit success…. may it be for a few days, months, years or many years till that project is completed (set goal is achieved). Well, I think that the individual basic human nature influenced with their own personal beliefs and their outlook while “in action” as a package, dominates the entire commitment process in whichever situations.   

       I read somewhere: Commitment means staying loyal to what you said you were going to do long after the mood you said it in has left you. So very true… isn’t it?

        The biggest monster that has been haunting us and ruling us for ages is the “Fear of Commitment”. We can browse through countless written material on this factor, especially in connection with the long-term commitments. When there is an “enforced need/demand” to enter a long-term relationship, some people may humanly feel overwhelmed with related thoughts and pressurized and hence “Commitment-phobic”. Many such people do go through great attempts to overcome this fear and take that dive. But, don’t you think that it is a general occurrence as well and that too on a large scale? Let’s be true to ourselves and acknowledge the fact that all of us experience “that” fear of commitment at certain intervals of time in our life…. mainly and most of the time it is the thought of leaving the “relished” comfort zone and bringing-in any change. Besides, fear can be also felt while taking up bigger professional challenges, fear-doubts about our own skills, fear of that big financial investment, fear of losing peace/health/wealth, fear of taking risks etc.

        “Tune our mind”, “Push it harder”, “Flush-out the pessimistic thoughts”, “Stay Focussed” seems all easy on paper but, we all know how hard and testing at times it can be. Well, while disciplining myself, I have observantly developed this habit of looking at each of my commitment as it is a “Truth” or “Dare” kind of a situation for me…. Truth- I want to achieve (tie that strongest knot in my mind) and Dare- I will do it, “right now” (my inner voice-set alarm timely knocking my mind). This ideology has mostly worked for me, I try not to over-commit, that way I have enough time to plan and concentrate. Also, some useful steps like working on the self-improvement practices (books, online inspirational help), post-it target reminders on the walls alerting me, controlling my distractions, open to oral reminders from my lovely gems at home has helped me quite a bit. Let me end by accepting that… Since actions speak louder than words, "Walk my Talk" is also helping me to stay committed more now that my boys are in their teens!

Until next time… let’s continue to be truthful to ourselves… let’s dare… identify our “Commitment-Kick”.

 Thank you ever so much for reading my thoughts. Kindly leave your valuable comments, like or share if you may. Stay safe and take care!!