I heard something recently that continues to ricochet around my skull every day:
“Honor your commitments to yourself.”
That hit me last Wednesday morning as the last of the grains of sand in the hourglass fell through the little aperture and I ran out of time to publish. I hadn’t honored a commitment I made to myself: to publish something at least every Wednesday. I have a similar goal for the business blog (a Friday deadline), but I once I had thoroughly demoralized myself, I didn’t hit my Friday publication goal either.
Why?
That is a really good question, and I think it gets right to the heart of what this whole thing is about. Motivation isn’t a problem. Desire isn’t a problem. No matter what else is going on, shouldn’t I at least keep self-preservation near the top of the list?
Rather than beat myself up about it, I had a little sit-down with myself and interrogated myself the way I would interrogate an employee whose cashbox was a little short again. (Something I have experience with.)
Here’s what I concluded after an exhaustive ten-minute reflection:
I didn’t budget my time properly
I didn’t define the hook/topic/point sufficiently
I let the perfect be the enemy of the good
I didn’t hold myself accountable to the deadline
It was that last one that hit me. Looking back on it, I did what I’ve done far too many times: I knew that the thing coming up was important, but the exact outcome was “fuzzy.” That was okay, though, because I could just wing it like I almost always do, and I’m sure something would come of it.
As if I need any more evidence that this rarely works…
It’s not quite as bad and dramatic as I might be making it out to be. It’s not like I just didn’t do it. I had actually written a draft about people who overcome trauma and become great leaders. I was trying to answer the question of how that happens. What is it about some people who use devastating circumstances to rise above and become better than they were before? (Turns out, according to one study I read, it’s “perspective enlargement” and “resilience.”) But I couldn’t quite close the loop, and difficulty became frustration, which morphed into panic, and then next thing I knew I was trying to write satire about white, middle class neighbors who get into a riding mower jousting match over a property line dispute.
I’m not even kidding.
There were other factors in play, though. (Like how I want to break away from this being more of a “personal journal” and more of a “news-you-can-use-letter,” but it’s so easy to fall into the Manosphere Guru genre when you consume so much of it…) Nonetheless, the bottom line is that I didn’t do the one, most important professional thing I had committed to: publish on the day I said I would.
The question—which is one for any of us who struggle to keep commitments to ourselves—is “why not?”
“I’m busy…”
“I have so many distractions…”
“This thing came up…”
“The kids…”
“Social media…”
“The season finale of The Plastic Housewives of Newark…”
Whatever…
So, lesson learned. As the first fish that pulled himself out of the ocean on slimy, translucent fins once said, “Evolution is painful.” But at the very least, keeping one’s commitments to oneself is an essential prerequisite for anything and everything else.
See you Wednesday.
Once again, thank you.