Meeting Your Goals #2: Making a Commitment

This is the second article in a three-part series on succeeding in meeting your goals. Start with Meeting Your Goals #1: Getting Focused or jump ahead to Meeting Your Goals #3: Tracking and Measuring Your Progress.

I’ve lost count of the number of goals that I’ve made over the years … most of which have ended up in never-again-opened notebooks, or have resulted in impulse purchases that I never used. Few of us manage to follow through on goals which arise from a temporary whim or from a half-hearted desire to do what we “should”.

When you have two or three key goals to focus on, you need to make sure you’re fully committed to them. The word “commitment” often applies to relationships: you’re committed to your partner, to your sports team, for instance. Commitment means sticking with that person or group regardless of whether things are going well or badly: you don’t ditch your partner after a bad week, and you don’t switch allegiances to a different team if yours plays badly.

A commitment is a promise. When you commit to a relationship, you’re promising to give it your best. When you commit to a goal, you’re promising that you’ll do everything in your  power to see it through – and that you won’t give up when it feels like more of a slog than an adventure.

I’m going to draw a distinction between internal and external commitments – both of which are powerful and necessary – before explaining how you can make a vivid commitment to your goals.

Internal Commitment

I’m sure you can think back to times in the past when you’ve felt a strong internal commitment to a goal. This often begins with a “lightbulb” or “aha” moment. Even if you’ve attempted and given up on the goal before, this time, you just know you’re going to see it through.

This was my experience with losing weight, and I was interested that Mark Forster wrote about a similar moment of internal commitment:

I lost twenty-eight pounds this year … I just knew I was going to. It was like when I stopped smoking years and years ago. I’d given up smoking hundreds of times before, but that time I just knew I was never going to smoke again. And twenty-seven years later I never have.

(Mark Forster, How to Make Your Dreams Come True – currently out of print, p90)

If you feel that your goal is more of a “should” than a “want”, ask yourself whether you’re at the right moment to start on it. You might be overweight and unfit – but this might not matter enough to you for you to really commit to a diet or exercise plan. It’s fine to recognise that your circumstances might not be exactly how you’d like them – whilst acknowledging that you don’t currently have a strong enough desire to change.

There are ways, though, to increase your sense of internal commitment to a goal, especially once you start working towards it and need to stay motivated. Three which I find helpful are:

• Affirmations and Visualisations
• Journalling
• Self-belief

Affirmations and Visualisations

We all talk to ourselves, playing an internal monologue inside our heads. These thoughts are often unnecessarily critical, negative or destructive – and letting them fester is like trying to drive whilst pressing down the brake.

I’m still struggling to form good affirmations instead of negative self-talk. One affirmation that I’ve had since being quite young is the conviction that “I can do anything that I really put my mind to”. I believe that this is true of everyone – if you want something enough, and you’re willing to commit to it, you will get there in the end.

Visualisations use pictures rather than words. I find it helpful to visualise the end point of my goals (I often picture my finished novel on the shelves!) but I also find that visualising the steps towards the goal can be very powerful. Athletes use this method, as do people facing situations like speaking in public.

Don’t let your visualisations become all about money and material possessions. Some people write out a pretend cheque for $1 million, or create a “vision board” of expensive watches, yachts and cars, but this isn’t a route I like. If you find yourself visualising things like these, ask yourself what you really want – is it freedom? Deep, loving relationships with your family? Beautiful surroundings?

Affirmation and visualization are forms of programming, and we must be certain that we do not submit ourselves to any programming that is not in harmony with our basic center, or that comes from sources centered on money-making, self interest, or anything other than correct principles.

(Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk, p135)

Journaling

I love to write (in case you hadn’t guessed ) and writing about my goals helps me to stay focused and committed. Keeping a journal is a powerful habit, and one that I have to confess I don’t manage consistently.

There’s no one right way to journal. Here are some suggestions – see which work best for you. In each case, don’t worry about spelling, punctuation or grammar: no-one else is going to see your journal.

• Spend ten minutes each day writing about whatever comes into your mind (sometimes known as “free writing”)
• Conduct a self-dialogue; ask yourself questions about your current situation or your progress towards your goal. I’ve found this a very powerful technique.
• Write down your vision of how things will be when you’ve achieved your goal. Write it in the present tense (“I am looking at my published book on the shelves in Borders…” etc)
• Write about how you’re feeling in regards to your goal. If you feel your commitment is flagging, try to identify why – and look for ways you can recommit yourself.

Self-Belief

Although you could achieve a goal whilst feeling convinced that you’ll never make it, in most cases, you’ll end up unconsciously sabotaging your own progress – or simply giving up as soon as it gets tough.

Commitment to purposeful action reduces the probability of failure and disappointment because it is derived from an inner belief that you can and will achieve your desired goal.

(Kimberly Bohannon, Make the Commitment to Achieve Your Goals, Go For Your Dreams)

When you focus on and commit to a goal, even one you’ve failed at countless times in the past, you can be confident that you will get there.  If you find yourself struggling a lot with low self-confidence, you might consider talking to a professional – a life coach or a counsellor – who can help you to recover your self-belief.

And even if your self-confidence is high, finding external reasons to stay on track can reinforce your internal commitment.

External Commitment

Slimming clubs like Weight Watchers, or support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, are popular because they work. It’s not just the encouragement and advice that helps people to meet their goals – it’s the sense of commitment that comes from being accountable to someone other than yourself.

I believe that internal commitment – a sense of owning and deeply desiring your goal – is crucial, but external commitment can keep you going when you inevitably hit moments of discouragement or apathy. Knowing that a person or a group of people are interested in your progress keeps you going.

Some ways you can find and use external commitment are:

Joining a Group

A group not only gives you a set of like-minded friends – it also usually gives you a deadline, which can really help you to move consistently towards your goals!

Perhaps you’ve always wanted to be a writer, but you never find the time to sit down and start on that short story or novel. Joining a writing circle means you’ll be taking a piece of writing to show others once a week. When I was a student, lacking the internal drive and self-discipline to work on my own goals without external help, I found that my writing invariably got done on a Monday … because my writers’ circle met on Monday evenings.

There are groups for all sorts of goals: try your local library or council for information. Don’t rule out online groups, either; an email group or forum could help you stay committed.

Finding a Partner

As a teenager, I was put off exercise by negative experiences in school. The few times I voluntarily did something active were with a friend – we went trampolining together, and we did an aerobics class (for all of three weeks, I think…)

Having a friend who can partner up with you on your goals will give your commitment a huge boost. It’s much easier to think “I won’t bother with the gym today” when you’re going on your own: if you’ve arranged to meet a friend there at 5pm, you’ll be very reluctant to let them down.

Telling People

Even if you don’t have a group or a friend who are engaged in working towards the same goal, you can still tell people about it. Choose those you tell carefully: my self-belief always takes a knock if I confide in someone about a goal and they scoff at it or don’t understand why it’s important to me.

If you have a blog or newsletter, you might want to tell your audience about your goals. If you run a small company, you could announce a particular goal to your clients. On a smaller level, you could tell your spouse, siblings or parents about your dreams and ambitious.

Be careful, though, to balance internal and external commitment: you need to want that goal for yourself, not just because others are expecting you to achieve it. Don’t let other people’s expectations dictate your goals.

Making Your Commitment

Although this might sound weird, I’d urge you to make a real and physical commitment to your goal. For me, this normally means writing my goals down. You might like to use a special notebook or noticeboard to record what your goal is (remember to be specific), and the date which you set that goal. Sign it – putting your signature to something helps create a powerful internal commitment.

Don’t sign your name until you’re ready. You might need to delay starting on your goal until you’re feeling certain that you’re committed – or it might mean you do make a start, but you delay committing until you’ve got a sense of whether the goal really is right for you.

For many years, I believed that, whilst I had the ability to succeed in many different areas, I didn’t have the self-discipline to see my plans through – because I kept making goals that I wasn’t committed to. Each time you commit to a goal and give up part way, you’re telling yourself that the commitment doesn’t really matter – which will decrease the effect of each future goal commitment you make.

So, treat your commitment seriously. Know that it’s a promise to yourself – and that this promise is as important as one you’d make to your spouse or your best friend.

In the third part of this series, I’ll be writing about how to track your progress on your goals – and why tracking is important. Get the RSS feed, or pop your email address in the box below, to make sure you get the next article!