What? More decisions? When we tackled what I call the hardest one, weren’t we done with them already? No such luck!
Just when I thought that we were indeed done with decisions, at least a couple more popped into my unwilling brain.
Here is one that can easily be categorized as the trickiest one.
After you have decided that doing some particular thing:
- Is in your best long term interest;
- Is worth the investment of both your time and money;
- Is important enough to come to peace about it with your partner (if you have one);
- And that you really can do this;
then another even trickier decision can show up and bite you in the tush.
This is actually an on-going decision. Once you do decide to take on something new, excitement and enthusiasm play a tremendous role in enabling you to get off to a strong start.
However, once you get into the reality of the nitty gritty of the work, and once you start running into the inevitable glitches that occur with any on-going project, that’s when you are confronted with this trickiest of decisions. Do you keep fishing or cut line?
Two quotes may prove inspirational whenever you run into this tricky decision.
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge
The art of commitment should really be called the art of re-commitment. Commitment gets you started and propels you through the early stages of any game, but it’s re-commitment that ignites your reserves when you feel like you’re going to give up. Those moments of low energy are inevitable (in my experience, at least) when you’re on the quest for any worthy goal. The saving move in that moment is to renew your commitment.
Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
Therefore the process is to first clarify and commit to your worthy goal, and then to decide to persevere and recommit to it, as often as necessary, in order to reach the objective you have set for yourself.
Reaching such a worthy objective is a vital component to enable you to enjoy a life of accomplishment and fulfillment.
So I’m curious. Do you agree that keeping a long term commitment to a big goal you have set for yourself is a tricky decision to have to make and then have to remake?
The Big Leap is still on my yet-to-must-read list. I certainly agree that maintaining a long term commitment involves tricky decision-making. When you first make the decision for a long term commitment, you have to face and overcome ways of thinking that steer you away from the discomfort of change or the need for leaps of faith so you can fully embrace the commitment. Unfortunately, for many people, and me, those same ways of thinking don’t disappear. They resurface in subtle forms. For me to maintain a commitment, I need to examine and face those internal arguments every time I recognize they have resurfaced. Yes, there may come a time to change the commitment, but in the meantime I need constant vigilance.
Dear Rick, thank you so much for giving such a vivid example of, and for expanding so thoughtfully on, the challenges I shared in this blog post.
Total agreement and well said as usual Marjorie. You are a true wordsmith.
Thank you for your kind words and the compliment.
Marjorie, I am glad to have this opportunity to reclarify and recommit to at least some of my goals. I have been a full month out with hospital and nursing home limits without my computer. I am rethinking most of my goals, personal and professional.
My book has a title and several stories ready for the collection that will be part of my book.
I know only that life has changed and what and how I pursue it will have to just wait for that new direction to be seized.
Dear Carol, Wishing you a speedy and complete recovery, and the full ability to pursue your worthy goals.