There’s a time in my life that’s been coming to mind recently. I was 35. I had lost pretty much everything I had. I was forced to sell my home, lost my business, had a failed relationship. I was in the dumps. As I listened to a self-help motivational tape at the time, it suggested writing down your goals and reading them out loud once a day. I thought it was silly; how could that help? But for grins, I wrote down 10 things that seemed most important to me at the time. The speaker said they needed to be clear and have a timeline. I stuck them on my bathroom mirror and glanced at them from time to time and then as they didn’t come true, lost interest. The commitment he was asking for was to believe in your own future. After a few months, nothing had materialized and I lost the list—or so I thought.
I saw a want ad offering a 38’ cruiser houseboat for only $10,000. I didn’t have any money at that point and very poor credit. Over coffee one morning, I mentioned it to my landlord, Mitch Joyner, who was becoming a friend. He almost immediately offered to lend me the money. “Why would you do that?” I asked. “You haven’t known me that long, and what if I don’t pay you back?” He replied, “I think you will, and I am at a point in life where I have more resources than I have time. I just want to help you because clearly you have more time than you have money.”
Weeks later after a garage sale to get rid of most of my belongings, I ran across that little piece of paper listing my goals. One was to own a nice boat and another was to live on the lake again. I laughed out loud; one action had achieved two goals. I had my boat and I was moving onto it so I was also literally living on the lake. My objectives were clear and the universe accommodated. Some might call that manifesting. I call it being willing to commit, despite the path being challenging.
True happiness can be difficult to achieve at times. So, what keeps any of us from getting on the path to a life that would bring us limitless joy? I am certainly no philosopher, and by no means am I a preacher, but I have a theory: it all boils down to commitment.
We all make mistakes. I think most people feel genuine remorse when they make one. As a man I know that when you make a major mistake you need to be willing to stand without making excuses when your time comes for judgment, acknowledge your wrong-doing, and realize that the opportunity you lost may not present itself again—no matter what you do to redeem yourself. But it doesn’t mean you can’t learn from it. Realizing that led me to think about making better choices and committing in a different way to my goals. It was a game-changer after everything that transpired before my move to my houseboat.
This concept has taken hold other times throughout my life as well. For example, with my health. I don’t enjoy being overweight, and the answer is simple—eat healthy, get moderate exercise, and consume less calories than you burn. Why do so many of us avoid that simple advice? Is it the belief that the pain of the journey will be more unpleasant than the pleasure of living a healthy life? Probably not. It once again sounds like a simple lack of commitment.
If you know me, that might surprise you. I am as over-committed as they come. It’s who I am. I give my all to everything. But we can become so busy running companies, tending to family needs, amongst a long list of other things, that its easy to lose sight of where you want be in a month, year, or ten years. And in overcommitment we actually become less committed to each individual area of our lives. It’s tough to give 100% to everything. At a certain point, you just don’t have the capacity, despite your best efforts. And it impacts your ability to feel joy to its fullest extent. It’s funny how that happens.
So, I am going to take time to write down exactly what I want and when I want it by. And I’m going to do this periodically to keep my goals and commitments front and center—and adjust life accordingly. I invite you to do the same.