Commit to Change Before You Take the Plunge - RichardStep: Grow Yourself & Your Career

commit change pig chicken involvement richardstep

Commitment. Is this a scary word or what? It is both scary and very important. It’s something you’ll have to do to see any kind of change out of the things you’re interested in. Not just involvement – commitment. Let me throw a fable at you real quick.

A Pig and a Chicken are walking down the road.
The Chicken says, “Hey Pig, I was thinking we should open a restaurant!”
Pig replies, “Hm, maybe, what would we call it?”
The Chicken responds, “How about ‘BACON-N-EGGS’?”
The Pig thinks for a moment and says, “No thanks. I’d be committed, but you’d only be involved.”

Commitment. It’s about being all-in. Resolving yourself to seeing something through. That doesn’t mean you have to get the high-score, it just means you want to try.

A big help in seeing commitments through is realizing that it’s not a matter of failing or succeeding. You will always succeed – it’s just a matter of quality and time to get there. The next time you get knocked down, remember this. You didn’t fail, you just got less quality and are taking a very long time to do it. You can still make it right, if you want to.

A win is just a high quality, on-time finish. Aim for high quality and on-time, but don’t worry too much about the lesser quality, slightly-late stuff. You can still get it. Maybe it’s just time to bring out the goal-laser. Bring out the big guns when you need them.

Get ready to write yourself a note, right now, and put it up on your desk. Grab your pen (a blue felt-tip or a sharpie is a great idea), a post-it note or index card, and write this on it:

“I will do my best to find at least one life-changing thing as I study ___________.”