I've been mulling this word and its definition around in my head for a variety of reasons for the last few days. The above definition is from Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary. The reason I ponder this is directly related to little things (and occasionally big things) in my life that I've committed to in the past and always seemed to fail so far from the goal. Don't think this whole thing is going to be a rant on how negatively impacted my life and consciousness are because of past missteps. I'm really trying to delve into the meaning of "commitment" and understand, in a public audience sort of way, how one can work through this issue.
Biggest problem with following through on commitment for me, right now, is my promise to myself to keep a daily practice going in an effort to understand who I am, become more aware of my body, and then keep myself present in my body so as to promote deeper growth and higher levels of awareness in myself. This is something I know I desire, and being a part-time control freak, want to master early on in my life. So why so hard? There are solid weeks where I fail to meditate at all and sometimes just a day or two at a time slips by with my not even having a thought towards my 10 minutes of sitting with myself focusing on breath and body. Part of me thinks this must be because I don't really want this that bad. Something I was told a lot growing up. Another part of me screams that the energy is there I just haven't unlocked my will to move forward yet and need to pull down what is blocking me. Still a third part of my mind says that it is merely a lesson to be learned and with continued perseverance I will prevail.
Other areas I've been less than perfect have involved other "me" things like committing to a workout schedule, better eating habits, taking time for Me, and improving relationships between friends and family. All of these are things I know I want and yet skip them over completely. Rarely, when other people are involved, usually in a work or school or social group setting, will I fail in my commitment, whatever that may be. Always there is a follow through and total completion of whatever task I'm given. Bosses have learned to rely on me and friends and family feel comfortable asking me to do something, anything. At least I think they do. Lol. So, is my motivator other people? Am I not capable of doing what I want to do? Do I think so little of myself that I don't value what I've promised myself? Maybe.
The Internet has been a bit of a waste in answering these questions, but About.com was fairly helpful in the article written by Keath Low titled "ADD and Commitments - Keep Those Commitments..." and I've included some of his advice here. His first piece is "Say Yes only when you mean Yes" and I can say I don't have an issue with this. I will rarely take on more than I can handle, and I have no excuse for not being able to do most of the things I commit to doing for myself. His second bit is sensible, and that is to break the task down into steps and set up a schedule to complete. God, I have so many issues with schedules and sticking to them. Issues, people. Despite all of this, it's great advice. It would be wise to try implementing his simple system for a few things and see how it works out.
I went on to read "ADD and Self Care" and found that I do most of these things or could easily implement them into my routine. No problems there. But what has caught my attention is that these and a few other articles I found all reference ADD and ADHD as common reasons for this problem. Please! Could I really have these? Granted, I've never been tested for it and I did show bad signs of being ADD in high school, but I've always been of the opinion that it was a type of learned behavior that could be reversed with a little disciplined thinking and operating.
So this obviously leads to further questions, but I'll save these for another time and post. For the time being I think it would help if I began some further research and meditation on what issues I may have with treating myself with respect. If I don't respect those I work for or seek to learn from, I take nothing away from the experience. The same applies to myself. A failure to put value in what I want for myself will only result in constant failure and a lack of following through on my commitments.
So I leave this post kind of open on the end and hopefully will have a closing land somewhere in another post down the road. Life is about constant change, evolution, and self-discovery. Here's to finding more out about myself and gaining a deeper awarenss of what makes me tick.
Thanks for listening in.
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