Interest Means Nothing Commitment Means Everything

“Interest gets you nothing, commitment gets you everything.” - Gedale Fenster

When I heard Gedale say this I got so excited. “Exactly!” I screamed out while I was running! It’s a good thing no one was around me!

Think about it for yourself, how many times have you been interested in doing something, learning something, being something and it never materialized? I was sitting at lunch with a client and we were discussing goals. She was telling me how she had always wanted and wished that she had done this, learned that and so on.

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I asked her, “Can you make a list of those regrets and look at them from your eyes today and ask yourself what really matters today?” As she did that on the spot she realized that she had been regretting things that actually had no importance in her life today. She was still beating herself up for not doing something that was of no consequence. I challenged her to see if there was anything on the list that she really wanted to do now.

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Then I probed her to make a new list of things she really wants to do now. As she did that, we discussed her commitment to actually making things happen by taking the necessary steps. She realized that only one item on her list was important enough now – that she had a big enough reason, a WHY, to commit to taking action. She also realized that even today her self-talk was focused on how she was failing because she wasn’t getting to everything on her wish list.

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AH HA! She took a breath!

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Can you take a breath? Can you do this exercise for yourself? Can you stop and remind yourself that life is filled with so many things and we get to choose what we commit to and where to take action. When you actually stop, breathe and close your eyes to think about what your goals and visions are – you will then know where to place your commitment efforts. Then the ball is in your court to take one step after another to make it happen so that you can get everything and take the journey that brings purpose to your life.

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Life is about choices and when we make choices that drive our purpose, we COMMIT!

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“Commitment is an act, not a word.” – Jean-Paul Sartre

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