By: D. A. Slinkard
How committed are you? What does commitment look like to you? How committed to God are you? How committed to your spouse? How committed to your family? How committed to your job? How committed are you in general? Too often we want to lie to ourselves and pretend we are committed when we really are not. When I ask the question about your commitment level, what I am really asking is on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being not committed at all and 10 being overly committed, how committed are you really? We all love to say we are a 9 or 10, but too often our actions make us a 2 or 3.
You may be saying that you are overly committed, that you are definitely an 8, 9, or even an 11 on the 10-point scale. If so, go ahead to the next article because this one is not for you. Now, if you are like the majority of individuals reading this, you actually fall into the range of 1-5 on the commitment scale. How does one up their commitment level? How does one do what they previously thought was humanly impossible? How does one go from being good to great? It is all in the actions we take and the commitment we have for those actions.
We have become a lazy society, and I am not just talking about physically, I am talking about the way we do things. Today, we have the greatest technological advancements known to man. We have ten-year-old children walking around with tablets in their hand that have more computing power than what landed the U.S.A. on the moon. We have all of these advancements, but the one thing we lack is the ability to rise above the noise. These advancements, though they make our toys nice, have created much more distraction in our lives.
When we become committed to something and make the conscious decision to go all in, then we will see changes in our lives. Fully commit to God and your life will change. Fully commit to your spouse and your life will change. Fully commit to your family and your entire family’s life will change. The decision to become committed is up to us, and the commitment levels are going to be different and vary from person to person. We must decide to make something a priority if we want to reap the benefits of our labor.
Before you can figure out where you want to go, it is imperative you do some critical thinking, and you must be honest with yourself. The hardest part of determining your commitment level happens when you come to the understanding and realization that we are not giving nearly as much as we could. It is a humbling realization for this writer to acknowledge my shortcomings when it comes to commitment levels in my life. What you must do is sit down and make a list of the people and things that are important to you. Once you have created this list, you must take the time to fully think about what actions and efforts you must put forth to achieve your desired outcomes.
If done correctly, this will not take mere minutes. This should take hours, if not days, to truly give the attention to detail that is required in order for you to achieve the commitment level you want. If you are not willing to make out these detailed lists, let me ask you again, “How committed are you?” I am a firm believer that if something is important to you, you will find a way. If it is not that important, you will find an excuse. The problem with our lives is that we are really good at thinking up excuses and not very good when it comes to thinking up solutions. We have all the tools necessary to be the smartest people in the world, but these tools too often make us dumb. We want to skip the commercial breaks because we just do not have the time to waste when in reality we should be skipping the television.
I urge you to truly think about your current commitment levels. Think about what matters to you most in your life; then, really take the time to ponder what you could be doing differently. If you take these steps and invest some time, and you will change your life — that is, if you truly commit and go all in.
By: D. A. Slinkard
D.A. Slinkard is the manager of the Athens Staples store
