When you hear the term “commitment” — does it evoke positive or negative feelings for you?
We recently did this exercise with a group of people and I was surprised to hear that for about half the people in the room commitment was scary or exhausting or it even outright sucked the air out of them.
This has a lot to do with perspective (remember that post from two days ago?). And yet — without commitment (or whatever other term you want to use) you won’t change. You won’t start your business. You won’t build the product you want to build.
And part of committing to doing something is the declaration. Declare what you set out to do in public, to your friends, your parents — whoever is important to you — and you have a much better chance to actually sticking to your plan. When I launched The Heretic I publicly declared that I will write every day. I mostly do. It has become second nature for me — and believe me, it was (and sometimes is) a struggle. But I declared that I will do this — and thus couldn’t back out (as I have done so often in the past).
But without committing to it and without me declaring my commitment I can guarantee you that I wouldn’t have written nearly 300 posts so far (yes — this is post number 299!).
And with that: What do you commit to and how will declare your commitment?
For the brave & crazy ones — send me your declaration via email (just reply to this newsletter), Twitter-style in less than 140 characters (declarations are best served short and to the point) and I will post them tomorrow on The Heretic!
How is that for public declaration? :)