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For more information, please visit www.mbinterim.com.Commitment: Setting Yourself Up for Success
Posted by Anonymous
“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes... but no plans.”
– Peter Drucker
Towards the end of every calendar year, I ponder what my hopes and dreams are going to be for the year to come. I think about what I want to accomplish in my career, consider extracurricular activities that I’d like to invest more time in, take an inventory of the relationships I’m devoting time to, and think about my own personal development outside of work, family, and friends. It’s so easy to dream big and map out goals in my head of what “success” would look like a year from now. The reality is, however, success cannot be realized if there’s nothing to measure it by; success is only as good as the standard that was created to measure it.
In order for my hopes, dreams, and promises to be realized, there must be a plan that’s set in place. I have to not only identify those things that I’d like to achieve and pursue, but I have to commit myself to them and prepare by creating tangible action items.
The steps toward committing myself to future success, while seemingly simple, serve as the roadmap that ultimately sets me up to achieve my objectives. Here’s :
- Write down ALL goals and objectives.
- Put a tangible plan in place. Create specific actions that need to occur in order reach a particular goal. (This includes start dates.)
- Share the goals and plan with someone for the purpose of accountability.
No matter what stage in your career you’re in, you have goals and objectives you’d like to see realized. Whether it’s improving employee retention, acquiring venture capital funding, landing a new role, or starting a consulting practice, commitment is the key to getting there.
Consider some of these definitions for “commit” and reconsider the things you’re “committed to”:
- To give in trust or charge
- To pledge (oneself) to a position on an issue or question
- To bind or obligate, as by pledge or assurance
- To entrust1
Commitment leads to effective planning; so, once you commit to something, be sure to tangibly set yourself up for success in your endeavors.
1. commit. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved February 18, 2009, from
Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/commit
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