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The 12 Week Year — Chapter-09: Interest versus Commitment
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Chapter 9 Interest versus Commitment Commitments are a powerful part of the 12 Week Year. An ability to make and keep commitments improves results, builds trust, and fosters high- performance teams, yet many of us avoid making commitments, and worse yet, we often break them when the going gets tough. To be truly great at what we do, we have to become better at keeping our promises. “Commitment is an act, not a word.” —Jean-Paul Sartre There is an old anecdote about commitments involving a chicken and a pig at breakfast time. The chicken has contributed the egg and is therefore merely interested in the breakfast; the pig, however, contributes the bacon, and is thus completely committed. It’s a humorous story, but ultimately paints a negative picture of commitment. In reality, kept commitments benefit both parties involved by improving relationships, strengthening integrity, and building self-confidence. Commitments are powerful and, oftentimes, life changing. I’m sure you can recall a time when you were determined to accomplish something meaningful and you were willing to do whatever it took to make it happen. One of the most powerful commitments that I have ever made was to my father. It was the summer after my first year of college and I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. The two of us were working in his garden, talking about my freshman year. It quickly became apparent to me during that conversation that my father and I had different perspectives on the purpose of college. The issue was my grades. I was on the dean’s list, but unfortunately for me, the dean kept two lists, and I was on the one for academic probation. My father explained that he was unwilling to continue helping with tuition
unless my results improved. I felt terrible and made a commitment that day to my father and myself. I promised him that when I went back to school in the fall, I would get all A’s. He challenged me to meet my commitment by adding to the stakes: If I did get all A’s, he would give me $500; if I didn’t, I would owe him $500. When I went back to school that fall, I pulled out all the stops. I went to class, took notes in lectures, read the texts, and did the homework. I also stopped socializing as much as I had during my first year. In the end, I got the grades—straight A’s. The $500 is long gone, but that commitment changed my life. I started showing up on the real dean’s list and I never went back. My story is a great example of commitment. A commitment is a personal promise. Keeping your promises to others builds trust and strong relationships, and keeping promises to yourself builds character, esteem, and success. “Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.” —Peter Drucker A definition of commitment that I like is “the state of being bound emotionally or intellectually to a course of action. . .” (American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition) From this perspective, a commitment is a conscious choice to act in order to create a desired result. We all know intuitively that an ability to keep commitments is fundamental to effective execution and high performance, but many of us fall short of our commitments on a regular basis. It seems that when things get difficult, we find reasons why we can’t keep our promises and we shift our focus to other activities. Often our interest wanes when things get tough. It is important to understand that there is a difference between interest and commitment: When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstances permit, but when you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results. When we commit to something, we do things that we would not ordinarily do. The question of if goes away and the only question you ask is
how. Commitment is powerful, but there are times when all of us struggle to commit. Here are the four keys to successful commitments:
- Strong desire: In order to fully commit to something, you need a clear and personally compelling reason. Without a strong desire you will struggle when the implementation gets difficult, but with a compelling desire, seemingly insurmountable obstacles are seen as challenges to be met. The desired end result needs to be meaningful enough to get you through the hard times and keep you on track.
- Keystone actions: Once you have an intense desire to accomplish something, you then need to identify the core actions that will produce the result you’re after. In today’s world, many of us have become spectators rather than participants. We must remember that it’s what we do that counts. In most endeavors there are often many activities that help you accomplish your goal. However there are usually a few core activities that account for the majority of the results, and in some cases there are only one or two keystone actions that ultimately produce the result. It is critical that you identify these keystones and focus on them.
- Count the costs: Commitments require sacrifice. In any effort there are benefits and costs. Too often we claim to commit to something without considering the costs, the hardships that will have to be overcome to accomplish your desire. Costs can include time, money, risk, uncertainty, loss of comfort, and so on. Identifying the costs before you commit allows you to consciously choose whether you are willing to pay the price of your commitment. When you face any of these costs, it is extremely helpful to recognize that you anticipated them and decided that reaching your goal was worth it.
- Act on commitments, not feelings: There will be times when you won’t feel like doing the critical activities. We’ve all been there. Getting out of bed at 5:30 a.m. to jog in the winter cold can be daunting, especially when you’re in a toasty warm bed. It is during these times that you will need to learn to act on your commitments instead of your feelings. If you don’t, you will never build any
momentum and will get stuck continually restarting or, as is so often the case, giving up. Learning to do the things you need to do, regardless of how you feel, is a core discipline for success. Many times commitments are made more arduous by the time frame for which they are made. It is difficult to commit to anything for a lifetime— even keeping a promise for an entire year can be challenging. With the 12 Week Year you are not asked to make lifetime or even annual commitments, but rather 12 week commitments. It is much more feasible to establish and keep a commitment for 12 weeks than to keep it for 12 months. At the end of the 12 weeks, you reassess your commitments and begin again. Our commitments ultimately shape our lives. They support sound marriages, create lasting relationships, drive our results, and help build our character. There is just something incredibly empowering about knowing if you say you’re going to do something that you can count on yourself, that you don’t need to hedge your bets.