I’m sure all of us can to relate to making decisions but then not committing to them, to making them happen. There is a very real difference between a decision and a commitment.

I certainly have made many decisions in my life time but never followed through to making them happen. In fact making decisions is very easy. It’s just words. But making a commitment is very hard. It requires action and it often means stepping out of our comfort zone into a place where we feel very unsure of ourselves.

As Jerry Bruckner reminds us, however, if we want to achieve our goals and fulfil our dreams, we need to make that unshakeable promise to ourselves that we will do whatever we have to do, for as long as we have to do it, to implement the decision we have made.

Someone recently told me this riddle: 10 frogs are sitting on a log. 9 decide to jump off. How many are left? The answer – Depends on how many of the 9 actually acted on their decision. I’m again sure we all can relate to that.

Some Insights From Others To Inspire and Motivate You in Making Decisions and Committing to Them.

Over the years I have created a book of quotes I use to inspire and motivate me. Some of these are very relevant to this discussion.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
– Henry David Thoreau

This is what often stops our decision making from moving to a commitment. We are not prepared to give up a significant part of our life – our energy and our time – to making it happen.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.
– Andrew Carnegie

It doesn’t matter how smart we are, how much talent and expertise we have, if we can’t motivate ourselves to action it into something that changes our lives and takes us on and up, we will always be mediocre, staying put, going nowhere. People often tell me that the reason they don’t do things that they actually would like to do is because “I am a realist”. In others words I know that won’t work even though I would like that to be. People who make a commitment, however, say they will do whatever they need to do to make it work. They will keep on adapting and adjusting until they get something that works. They never give up.

When you are surrounded by people who share a passionate commitment around a common purpose, anything is possible.
– CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz.

This is so very, very important when we have set a goal and are absolutely committed to achieving it. We need to surround ourselves with like-minded people, empowered and empowering people, who are also committed to achieving their goals. Few people can achieve their goals on their own.

Revisit Your Decisions

Here’s an exercise to do.

1. List all the important decisions you have made within the last 12 months that you haven’t yet actioned.
2. Prioritise them from most important to least important.
3. Start with the most important.
4. Reflect on what is standing in your way to committing to that goal.
5. Decide what you need to do to remove those obstacles.
6. Make an unshakeable promise to yourself to achieve that goal.
7. When you have, move to the next most important unmet decision.

If you have found this blog post helpful, but are not on my mailing list, you can subscribe here.