This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The 12 Week Year" by Brian P. Moran. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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What is self-commitment? What does it take to really commit to your promises and follow through in spite of the difficulties that arise along the way?
Self-commitment is a promise to follow through on your accountability, or a promise to perform your intended actions. According to Michael Lennington, the author of The 12 Week Year, there are four components to developing a strong sense of self-commitment: a strong desire, keystone actions, cost of commitments, and self-accountability.
Read about self-commitment and how to develop it.
How to Develop Self-Commitment
The simple act of self-commitment is life-changing. Your sense of self and success grows the more you continue to show up and do the work. But it’s too easy to break our promises when situations become difficult. If you only do what you say you’ll do when things are easy, you’re not truly committing to your work or life.
The following components are required to develop a strong sense of self-commitment:
- You must have a strong desire to compel you to act. This is similar to the need to create a compelling vision of your future. If you’re not emotionally connected to the results of your actions, you won’t be willing to commit to them, especially when you hit a rough patch.
- You must know what keystone actions are at the heart of your desired outcome. There may be many ways to go about generating a certain result in business and life, but only a handful, maybe even one, will generate the most optimal results you’re capable of. Have the courage to determine the best road forward, even if it is treacherous.
- You must understand the costs of commitment. True commitment will eventually involve sacrifice. You may have less time for socializing or television, or you may have to spend money or take a pay cut to achieve your goals. These sacrifices can derail your progress if you aren’t prepared for them. Weigh the costs of true commitment beforehand to determine whether you’re truly willing to give up what’s familiar and comfortable to achieve greatness.
- You must ignore your feelings and focus on keeping your promises. True self-commitment is hard work. You won’t always feel like putting forth the required effort to accomplish the necessary tasks, but these are the moments you must work hard to commit. Each time you push through your negative feelings to maintain your commitments, you’ll gain trust and momentum that lead to discipline.
Stated Intentions Versus Hidden Intentions
When you make a self-commitment, you’re stating that you have an intention to do something in the future. But there are two types of intentions inside each commitment: stated and hidden. Your stated intentions are like the top of the iceberg poking out of the water, which is only about 10% of the total mass. The hidden intentions are like the 90% of the iceberg below the waterline. In your life, you can call this the “waterline of consciousness.”
You’re fully aware of your stated intentions. You intend to lose weight, you intend to make extra sales calls, or you intend to take your spouse on their dream vacation. But these stated intentions are in conflict with the hidden intentions. Under the surface, your subconscious has other intentions, such as not wanting to give up pizza or leisure time for diet food and exercise, not wanting to work late or be too exhausted to enjoy the weekend, or not wanting to spend a lot of money or take the time off of work to travel. These hidden intentions conflict with your stated ones, and because you’re unaware of them and their power, they often win the battle and keep you from following through.
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Here's what you'll find in our full The 12 Week Year summary :
- How to create a structured plan to rapidly accomplish goals
- Why annual goals don't work
- How to create urgency by working in 12-week increments
