Commitment Implies Action. And Determination.

Determination is a Core Component of Commitment

Translating your intentions into choices and then moving your choices into action requires the power of commitment.

You can think of commitment as a contract between your spiritual side ─ the part of you that wants to grow and develop ─ with your mind and body. Your mind and body have to do the work to achieve the goals of your spiritual side (which explains everyone's conflict between having a desire for change and often lacking the commitment to change). You will feel the decisions of your spiritual side internally, in your heart and gut. Only you can decide who will win the battle between your heart and gut on one side, and your body and mind on the other.

When you make a firm commitment you dedicate yourself to a course of action in pursuit of your goals and desires, hopefully resulting in an expansion of your well being, self satisfaction and overall happiness.

You have to make a decision to act and then make a commitment to act. As Bertrand Russell wrote, "Nothing is so exhausting as indecision."

Commitment implies action. When you make a commitment to others, this pledge usually propels you to follow through and do what you promised. The same should be even truer for a commitment you make to yourself.

Andre Malraux, the French author, adventurer and statesman, is definitely on the mark with his comment that, "Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to be on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk ─ and to act."

How do you obtain the commitment to act? It comes from within, from the burning desire deep within yourself that produces a spark in you saying "I have to achieve this" or "I must accomplish this."

There is a huge difference between a "must have" or a "must do" and a "want." There are likely many things you want to do, but only a handful of things that grasp the inner core of your soul and your self-consciousness to produce a must do.

The things that you willingly practice in order to hone your skills and talents will usually fall into the must do category. Sometimes this willingness to practice will come naturally, through an internal flame of motivation. At other times, however, you will need to coerce yourself into action.

But, as Harry S Truman said, "In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves ─ self-discipline with all of them came first."

Former baseball manager Tommy Lasorda noted that, "The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man's determination." Determination, of course, is a core component of commitment. 

This article is excerpted from the best-selling book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available in paperback and Kindle formats at Amazon.