by Now What?® Coaching Founder, Laura Berman Fortgang
In our short-attention-span, instant-gratification, electronic world, it gets increasingly harder for people to stick with something. Everything changes so quickly—our amazing new gizmo will become obsolete in two years or less, as will our initiatives in the workplace or at home. So many changes, at ever increasing speeds, makes it hard to commit to anything!
Why bother?
Well, there’s the obvious. Commitment will get you where you want to go. Put on blinders, see nothing else, stay put and don’t wander. Stay on task, stay focused. The tougher part of commitment, however, is settling in on why one should commit—to anything. If it’s going to change next month, isn’t it futile?
How does one commit in a hailstorm of change? There are two ways: know where you’re headed and be loyal to a way of being instead of an actual task. When you have a big picture of what you want to accomplish, it is easier to commit despite setbacks and changes. Is it a 50-year marriage? An income amount? A certain company or college you want to get in to? Stay loyal to that picture and be willing to do whatever it takes and change as many times as you have to to get there.
Secondly, decide (latin root: cut off all other options) WHO you want to be on this journey to the big picture. Stressed and harried or collected and determined? Choose a way of being that will fuel the journey to the big picture. How you behave is much more in your control than all the circumstances are. So choose carefully, and live that way of being the way a sailboat would catch the wind to get where it wants to go.
This reminds me of the Harry Potter series. Harry’s big picture—make the most of his gifts of wizardry. Harry’s way of being—take the high road, use his magic for good. It doesn’t mean he didn’t have to pull a few punches, because he did. However, he prevailed to conquer evil. He had no idea of how he’d get there. He had to change at every turn and be agile and quick. He could not stay the same. Only become better and better versions of himself.
That is what is being asked of you now. To keep fine tuning the best of what you have to give and use it to it’s greatest advantage. For then and only then, will we make any sense of the unpredictability of change.
This is a reassuring article. Despite your posing the challenge to people to step up and choose and be who they really want to be in the world, it is comforting to feel that among the many choices and shiney objects, as long as I am choosing aligned with what I believe I am about, and what I stand for, I am doing okay. Thanks, as always:-)