Baby Steps With Commitment

None of us start out knowing how to crawl, walk, talk, chew, understand language, read or control our bladders. . . but we all learned (hopefully) and we all learned one step at a time. We learned to communicate, we learned to be mobile, we learned to send e-mails, we learned to cook microwave popcorn. . . there's no end to what we've learned in our years on this planet.

And it all started out with baby steps.

The good news is, we continue to learn. We can learn anything that we set our minds to. By parsing anything into small chunks, we can do absolutely anything -- learning a new language (which, incidentally, is something that I'm experiencing at my ripe age and through techniques such as the light and sound machine where I achieve the brainwaves associated with early childhood, I'm excelling in Spanish at an incredible rate), learning a musical instrument, learning a computer program, even learning how to have total congruity and living honestly with ourselves and everyone around us.

Here's what I want you to do. Pick something that you can absolutely be 100 percent in control of and commit to doing it. Let me give you an example. Let's say today, and this is one I like because I can be in control of doing it, I'm going to go out at 3:00 today to the mailbox. So let's say that 3:00 is 10 minutes away from now. I'm going to go check the mailbox and come back. No matter what, I'm going to keep that commitment to myself.

You can do that, can't you?

Here's another one: Tell yourself you're going to go home from work today on a particular route. Let's say it's slightly different than normal, and then force yourself, be vigilant and alert because your normal reflexes will take over and you'll do it the same way you always did unless you pay close attention.
Or maybe you decide you're going to clean up your desk by 5:00 o'clock. Then at 5:00 o'clock, you simply clean your desk. Do it.

I don't care how little it is, but whatever it is, pick something little and do it.

Then when you want to go a little further, extend the time frame. Tell yourself, I'm going to check the mail today at 4:00, so that's three hours from now. The key is that you do not allow anything, no matter what, to get in your way of doing what you committed to do.

The next extension is to enlarge the magnitude of the task. Maybe it is something you don't really want to do -- yard work, exercise, or making an appointment for the dentist -- once you've established within yourself that you can go get the mail, you will be primed to conquer the larger tasks.

What you might find in doing this exercise is that you make all kinds of commitments to yourself and others that you have no intention of keeping. Is it any wonder you're not getting ahead faster than you are right now?

Again, to see how fast you are or are not getting ahead, look into your environment because that will show you really quickly how powerful your will is.