Executive Life - Making and Keeping Commitments
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“Unless commitments are made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.” -Peter Drucker

Yesterday a client canceled an appointment. Big deal? Depends. Emergencies happen. But I can predict with 100% accuracy whether a client is floundering or flourishing simply by whether he or she keeps these commitments.

The flounderers do not call me directly, they have their assistants do it; the conversation usually goes something like this: ”So sorry, something’s come up with Mr. Flounder, we didn’t anticipate it. I really apologize for the inconvenience. Can we reschedule?”

When you’re having trouble meeting your commitments there are three reasons:

1. Failure to set priorities.
2. Activities not aligned with those priorities.
3. An issue with commitment.


If any of the above sound familiar, read on.

Failure to Set Priorities

If your issue is setting priorities, then it’s time to get real about what really matters to you. The quality of your questions determines the quality of your answers. Questions you might ask yourself are:

• What are my top priorities, really?
• How will I accomplish these this year?
• What will be the impact when I’m finished?
• And how do I know that this is what I should be doing?”

Activities Not Aligned with Priorities

If you suspect that the issue is not priorities, but alignment, then it is time for tough love with your calendar. Everything should be related to one of your priorities. Take 10 minutes to spin through the next two months and see whether this is the case. If not, it explains why you’re getting to the end of your days feeling frustrated.

If it’s important enough to do, then it is important enough to put on your calendar. Write in each activity related to a priority. Leave white space for meetings, calls, and emergencies (there will be plenty of those) and don’t allow yourself to fill it up with “nice to do” stuff. If you aren’t sure, put it in as tentative, and don’t commit. And, don’t allow anyone access to your calendar unless they are completely apprised of your priorities and you are absolutely assured they will run interference and guard your time like gold bars at Fort Knox.

An Issue with Commitment

If the issue is inability to commit, well, that’s a horse of a different color. Short of taking up space on a therapists couch for a few years, what can you do to address commitment issues? Remember there is a difference between interest and commitment. I’m interested in learning to play golf, and what that means is I will probably do it when circumstances permit- when I’m traveling to a conference at a beautiful resort in Arizona I’ll set up a lesson with a pro. However, I am committed to writing a third book. I had a call with my publisher, McGraw Hill two weeks ago. Last week I scheduled time to brainstorm book outlines and wrote three of them during that two hour period, and I will share those with my agent when we meet on Friday from 2 to 4 pm. You get the idea. As the saying goes, when you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, just results.