Making and Keeping Commitments

At the very heart of our Circle of Influence is our ability to make and keep commitments and

promises. The commitments we make to ourselves and to others, and our integrity to those

commitments, is the essence and clearest manifestation of our proactivity.

It is also the essence of our growth. Through our human endowments of self-awareness and

conscience, we become conscious of areas of weakness, areas for improvement, areas of talent that could

be developed, areas that need to be changed or eliminated from our lives. Then, as we recognize and

use our imagination and independent will to act on that awareness -- making promises, setting goals,

and being true to them -- we build the strength of character, the being, that makes possible every other

positive thing in our lives.

It is here that we find two ways to put ourselves in control of our lives immediately. We can make

a promise -- and keep it. Or we can set a goal -- and work to achieve it. As we make and keep

commitments, even small commitments, we begin to establish an inner integrity that gives us the

awareness of self-control and the courage and strength to accept more of the responsibility for our own

lives. By making and keeping promises to ourselves and others, little by little, our honor becomes

greater than our moods.

The power to make and keep commitments to ourselves is the essence of developing the basic habits

of effectiveness. Knowledge, skill, and desire are all within our control. We can work on any one to improve the balance of the three. As the area of intersection becomes larger, we more deeply

internalize the principles upon which the habits are based and create the strength of character to move

us in a balanced way toward increasing effectiveness in our lives.

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart Proactivity: The 30-Day Test

We don't have to go through the death camp experience of Frankl to recognize and develop our own

proactivity. It is in the ordinary events of every day that we develop the proactive capacity to handle the extraordinary pressures of life. It's how we make and keep commitments, how we handle a traffic

jam, how we respond to an irate customer or a disobedient child. It's how we view our problems and

where we focus our energies. It's the language we use.

I would challenge you to test the principle of proactivity for 30 days. Simply try it and see what

happens. For 30 days work only in your Circle of Influence. Make small commitments and keep

them. Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be part of the solution, not part of the

problem.

Try it in your marriage, in your family, in your job. Don't argue for other people's weaknesses.

Don't argue for your own. When you make a mistake, admit it, correct it, and learn from it --

immediately. Don't get into a blaming, accusing mode. Work on things you have control over.

Work on you. On be.

Look at the weaknesses of others with compassion, not accusation. It's not what they're not doing

or should be doing that's the issue. The issue is your own chosen response to the situation and what

you should be doing. If you start to think the problem is "out there," stop yourself. That thought is the problem.

People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day will, little by little, expand that freedom.

People who do not will find that it withers until they are literally "being lived." They are acting out the scripts written by parents, associates, and society.

We are responsible for our own effectiveness, for our own happiness, and ultimately, I would say,

for most of our circumstances.

Samuel Johnson observed: "The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so

little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition,

will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove."

Knowing that we are responsible -- "response-able" -- is fundamental to effectiveness and to every other habit of effectiveness we will discuss.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 1093