How committed are you? How committed are you in all of your endeavors? Reflecting on life, sports success, government, environment, business, lifestyle, family, health etc., I am convinced that one, if not the most important element of achieving what you want is COMMITMENT.

A few years ago, when participating in networking and promoting my business I ran across many that conveyed interest in moving their business forward, however I noted that many of them did nothing about it. When I gave workshops on building their business, including some that were free, I noticed that many of those that did the conveying did not take advantage of the workshop, the opportunity to learn something or to interact and brainstorm with others to help grow their business. My conclusion was that they simply were not committed to growing their business. I even began to include in my elevator speech that I was looking for those that were truly COMMITTED.

Over the past few months I have become convinced that the reason we do not accomplish more is that with all that we are exposed to, we do not make the choices, are relatively comfortable, and therefore, again, in many cases, are not COMMITTED to what we say we want.

Are we really, truly committed to winning the war on Terror? If we are, are we all in, doing what we, in our hearts and minds know we need to do if we are truly committed to winning this war? We declared war on drugs decades ago and yet, we have never won that war, because we did not make the tough decisions related to and doing what really needed to be done to win the war on drugs.

Congress has been paralyzed because of party agendas. Instead of our representatives making the right decisions for their communities and constituents, they are mostly controlled in a way that eliminates moving forward. Has the word compromise for the greater good been removed from Washington? Where is our Representatives commitment? Is it a commitment to stagnation?

Where is our accountability? Are we unaware and unconscious? Are we blaming others? Are we creating excuses why we can’t? Are we waiting and hoping it will get better? OR are we acknowledging the situation and getting involved? Are we owning the problem/situation/issue? OR even more important are we finding solutions and making it happen?

If we are truly committed we need to own the situation. We need to go all in—just like in a poker game. We need to be in to win, not survive or remain with the status quo. We need to be all in to live the life we envision—yes we must have clarity of that vision—and once we have that clarity, to achieve what we want, we need to be ALL IN—WE NEED TO BE COMMITTED.

Being committed means defining goals to achieve what we are committed to achieving. It means developing strategies to achieve the goals. It means defining the actions needed to be taken to breathe life into the strategies. It means documenting the plan to achieve the goals. It means executing the plan, doing what needs to be done, staying focused on what you are committed to and having the passion and resolve to do what is necessary to achieve the goal.

Are you truly COMMITTED to your business? Are you truly COMMITTED to your family? Are you truly COMMITTED to your relationships? Are you truly COMMITTED to your health? Are you truly COMMITTED to creating wealth to fund your children’s education and your retirement? Are you truly COMMITTED?