What’s the first thing you do when you really want to get something done? Some say you need to plan it out. Others might argue it’s important to find your support crew – the people that will help you accomplish it.
I take a different stance. I say the first thing you need to do is commit. Before you make a plan, before you go in search of team members, you have to convince yourself that you’re 100% committed to whatever you’re about to do.
Without that, how far can you really get?
When I started Advanced Riskology, I knew I wanted to turn it into my career. It’s not quite there yet, but it’s on its way. I’d have never even made it this far, though, if I hadn’t committed to making that happen. In the last five months, lots of opportunities have come up to work in other fields. I’ve turned them all down because they would have distracted me from my main focus here.
If I hadn’t promised myself to make AR work, I’d have easily been drawn away. I’m glad I wasn’t.
A Promise to Yourself
At the core of this commitment, is the promise you must make to yourself to be authentic and spread your message – to tell the world what you stand for. Every single person has a unique story that can change the world, but not many ever make that critical promise to themselves to tell it.
It’s uncomfortable. When you make that decision, it means no longer hiding behind your job description. It means not brushing aside the questions people ask when they get an unexpected answer to “So, what do you do?”
What’s your unique message? What do you need to tell the world?
Stop reading for 30 seconds….and really get clear about it. Tell yourself who you are and what you intend to do. Got that figured out? Don’t keep going until you do. Now for the easy part:
Commit to spreading that message.
The beauty about making a commitment is that it seems hard, but it actually isn’t. In fact, it’s really easy. Say it out loud. Go ahead. No one’s listening. If they are, then all the better. Did you do it? I wasn’t joking. Say it out loud, damn it!
Public Accountability
There’s one more step to this process. Making a personal commitment is one way to motivate yourself to actually do something, but making a public commitment is even more effective.
When you take your words and write them down for others to see, the whole game changes. As important as the 1% Club is to me, I wouldn’t be as motivated to pursue it as quickly as I am if there weren’t thousands of people looking at it every day and wondering when I would have an update for them.
Again, this is something that seems hard, but it really isn’t. All you have to do is write down a few words – just a few simple words.
The world needs to hear your message and I want you to tell it, so here’s what I’d you to do today:
Leave a comment telling us all what your unique message is, make a commitment to tell it, and sign your name to it.
Here, I’ll start.
I promise to be true to myself by telling the world about the benefits of taking risks by writing passionately for Advanced Riskology and other important outlets every single week. When someone asks me what I do, I’ll tell them with sincerity that I help people lead more interesting lives by taking bigger risks. If I am honest and if I am passionate, the world will listen.
Tyler Tervooren
Go leave your comment now.
P.S. You don’t have to stop here. You may never come back to this article again, but you’ll probably go to the refrigerator, your desk, and your car over and over again. Write this contract to yourself down again and post it wherever you need to see it each day as a reminder.
~~~~~
Image by: eschipul
i commit to showing up everyday, needles and yarn in hand, and knitting the world a better place. i commit to sharing patterns and finished knits with others, to encouraging knitters to use what they have and stop hoarding yarn and supplies, and to knitting as much as i possibly can from the discarded yarn others no longer want.
like tyler, when people ask me what i do, i will tell them with sincerity that i’m knitting the world a better place.
This is totally awesome. I love it.
Now there is a Unique Selling Proposition. I love it.
just want to say how awesome i think this is. made me smile. i told a friend of mine about your statement and shared your link. thanks for sharing (so i can let others know, also)!
I promise to blaze down the path that leads to making my living as a musician. I know that doing this makes my life better as well as others and I am committed to making that happen. The first step is recording an album of my music and the studio time will be booked next week. Onward and upward!
That’s really great, Jay! Best of luck in the studio.
Thanks, Tyler!
I promise that there is someone who will help you understand what is happening around you when someone you love gets a diagnosis that blows up your world. Starting November 16.
That’s pretty powerful, Heather. Sounds like you’ve been through a lot in order to be able to offer that to others.
here is my commitment, written a little differently from my l’il 1994 epiphany … “There are BRIDGES yet to be constructed by those who live and breathe in their ENVIRONMENT — AIR, LAND and WATER. Egos stand firm on the ground that they were born and choose not to acknowledge that to get one step closer they must go one step FURTHER. MY VISION IS TO CREATE THOSE BRIDGES.” – Shirley Rivera
thank you, tyler, for having a place for folks to share their commitments and promises. great post and very excited(!!!) about learning others’ commitments.
(and if you are interested, here is a set of values, that goes along with the vision/commitment.)
Thanks for contributing, Shirley. Here’s to building more bridges.
thanks much, tyler! have a great day!
I promise myself that I will always try to show people that the world is not only bad, evil and corrupted. I shall do this through my writing and other means of communication. I am here to listen and talk to you.
In a world of despair, giving hope is a welcome change. Thanks, D.
I am an actress. I promise not to let go of my art to take the easy path. I am and will continue to be a working actress and producer who loves her work and those she works with. Hollywood here I come.
See you in the next blockbuster film, Tonya.
I promise myself and my life that I will do what it takes to become a writer. I believe like I believe that I have a gift, which is why I relocated myself to Chicago; to focus. I mostly write plays, but that is only one way to communicate my voice, I am a writer as a whole with writing skills beyond theatre.
After a promise comes the first step towards achieving what one sets out to accomplish. My first step is to complete my book. A book I have been working on for 3 years off-and-on. And off-and-on is not a commitment, it’s something else that I don’t want to be anymore. I may not be sure what my journey has in store, but I know I am open to possibility, and I know what I can do to keep it moving forward and guide myself along this adventure. And up to this point I have been stagnant.
So there it is and here I go…
Best of luck finishing that book, Damian. And best of luck with all of your other writing projects.
Tyler,
Thank you for writing Advanced Riskology. I have found so many of your posts to be inspirational.
I promise to help my family live a simpler life. A life where we truly appreciate that we are healthy and have each other. A life where we do less and have less stuff, but are happier.
Even though my days can be hectic with a husband, two young children, a big, black dog, and a full time job, I commit to writing my blog, Simple Living Family, as the one creative thing I do just for me. I find by recording our family’s journey it is holding me accountable to my goals, while helping others at the same time.
Dare I say it? I hope one day it will help me work less outside the home and be able to spend more time with my family.
Great focus, Karla. I’m a big proponent of getting more out of less.
Even though it’s only a few weeks old now, I vow to make a career out of my blog. To spread the word that you CAN feel alive everyday and that you CAN do extraordinary things. To not only write about these things, but to live them. To be an example of what can be accomplished by an ordinary person by achieving my crazy dream of running across China and Central Asia on foot and via bike 18 months from now. To make a difference in the world by raising money for charity while I do it.
Trever Clark
Those are some pretty audacious goals, Trever. It’s going to be fun to watch you accomplish them.
I am committed to helping those I love and to supporting those who inspire me. Be it fundraising, writing proposals, planning parties, running errands, making a coffee, listening, or setting an example, I bring people together and build community. That’s what I am committed to. And there are so many ways I’ve yet to try doing this! (Thanks for making this space for us all, Tyler.)
There are so many ways to help yourself by helping others. Build that community, Jocelyn.
I am a writer. I have done and will again derive my primary income from my words, be they fiction or non. I will share the worlds in my head with others in the hope they will either be inspired to share their own worlds with me or find great joy in playing in my inner landscapes. I will encourage the beauty and art in others insofar as I am able through example and verbal encouragement.
Great to hear, Kate. Making a living from what you love comes with all kinds of other unadvertised benefits.
I promise to seek every outlet of knowledge of progressive education and absorb as much as humanly possible, so when I open my own school it will be one of the best in the world.
Wow, Celeste. Opening a school? That’s a fantastic mission. When do you plan to open it?
ASAP, but I need more experience. Within 10 years, the the ideal is in 5 years.
You sure do make it sound easy, Tyler.
I am committed to teaching people how to move towards simplicity through unconventional eating. Any un-American food habits will do: local, sustainable, organic, homemade, anti-packaging. I want to spread the message.
I could use some unconventional eating in my own diet.
Making the commitment really is easy. It’s the easiest part actually. Following through is what’s harder. But, when you take that initial step and get serious about the words you’re saying, following through becomes that much easier.
I will commit to taking myself out of the 9 to 5 grind and making a living doing what I love: helping other people become healthier and happier; writing and finding ways to spend less time working and more time playing. While we become healthier, happier people, we will also be given the opportunity to spend more time with the people we love (be it friends or family or both), by supporting ourselves doing what we love. I also commit to procrastinate less and produce more.
I vow to be real and live consciously in the present moment, to ask questions and seek answers to matters that spark my interest and bring me joy, and to create beautiful things that inspire others to take action. I intend to help others awaken to consciousness, believe in themselves, and strive toward exceeding their potential.
Whew…now I need the confidence to do what I just wrote.
Michiko
Keep repeating that to yourself and I think you’ll find it.
I am sure you can do it.
I love this so much! My commitment as a holistic lifestyle coach (in training) is to help people find peace with food and their bodies and live a life filled with their passions. I want to help others heal themselves so they can spread their own unique message.
I honestly believe that the world will be a better place when more people are fufilling their purposes, or like Paulo Coelho says in “The Alchemist,” following their “Personal Legends.”
Thanks, Tyler!
Thanks for the inspirational post! At first, I looked at it and thought “I don’t really know what I want” but then I realized I DID have a bunch of things I wanted to do and be.
I stand for being independent and adventurous. Hard work and patience DO yield results. I can be whatever I want to be, a pilot, chef, musician, writer.
I commit to being a woman who is positive about her sexuality and educating/sharing knowledge with others. I commit to making a living off of my blog so that I can combine my love of writing and life with the flexibility to live my life the way I want to. I commit to being present with myself and living positively instead of letting myself get bogged down with guilt and negativity.
I vow to cook the best inexpensive North African food possible for my food truck using only product from sustainable farming and animal rearing methods. Furthermore, this will be against the backdrop of doing it all for the benefit of the life I wish to build with the most wonderful woman I have ever met.
[...] The Simplest Commitment in the World. Ask: What’s your unique message? What do you need to tell the [...]
Tyler, you are incredible, thank you.
I commit to pulling together (at the young age of 54) all the deep threads of my life – my passionate love of horses and racing, of music, writing, books, my established career in photography and video — into one integrated life’s work that brings a greater depth of understanding of who we are and how we became what we are, and most importantly, is an example to others, saying ‘THIS is what you can do if you work without limits.” Rather than forcing myself into a specialized niche, I will show that it is the mastery of integration that is the great accomplishment. “Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one.”
I commit to teach my readers (young or old, working, in college or pursuing freedom) the art of Sovereign Zen by consistently showing them well-supported strategies, reasoning and examples. I commit to be a truth-teller showing the realities to debust myths and self-fulfilling prophecies that causes catastrophic disappointments down the road. The truth-telling is also served to show my readers a wider picture for their interests so that the powerful yet greedy + selfish few have a harder time taking advantage of my readers (preventing them to repeat my mistakes).
When people ask me what I do, I will tell them that I help young people break free of the corporate scam.
I commit to living my dream of experiencing daily the beauty of the French language in my soon-to-be new home city of Montreal!
I commit to living deliberately: to always being real, honest, and brutally genuine–to the world, and especially to myself. There is always a certain “me” I can picture living my life–the me if I did the things I really wanted to do, worked hard for the things I really desire (no matter how difficult or frustrating it gets), said what I feel and acted on my “what ifs.” I commit to keeping that “me” in the forefront of my mind and striving to live up to her potential. Life is too short to live on energy-saver mode. I commit to go all out, and to run with whatever that brings.
[...] The Simplest Commitment in the World “Every single person has a unique story that can change the world, but not many ever make that critical promise to themselves to tell it.” ~Tyler Tervooren at Advanced Riskology [...]
I’m going to tell people about my made-up world, because it’s different from all the others and deserves to be shown. I’m going to stop sabotaging my own attempts to write it down with doubt and fear of rejection. I CAN believe that people will have an interest in what comes from my imagination.
[...] + Tyler’s post about staying committed to what your beliefs [...]
Salut Tyler – I was posting a reply to your “I Commit” piece last weekend and the line went dead before I could hit send. Thinking the message had been sent I decided on a plan of action which I concentrated on until the hotel’s internet connection came back after 5 long days. I finally got “Eat With a Smaller Spoon” into gear a couple of days ago, and thank you for prompting to make a promise to myself… which I had to keep this time!
Salut – Ed.
Wow..this is awesome, i have been pondering for a bit now about which direction i would be heading…here goes.
I commit to putting my heart and soul into the fight for the freedom of my mind, i promise to respect my judgment and all times even in the face of adversity. i promise to respect and love everybody for the artists they are, if i falter, i will put a smile on my face and continue on my quest until my last breath.
Thank you Tyler for this excellent post.
[...] + Tyler’s post about staying committed to your beliefs [...]
I commit to helping others understand the importance of taking care of our bodies + minds + souls in harmony with nature and the natural world, including healthy eating, movement, relationships, stress management, spirituality, and connection with nature. I commit to learning as much about natural healing methods as I possibly can and sharing my knowledge and expertise with as many people as I can. To the other Jackie, I am an IIN grad too!
[...] The Simplest Commitment in the World “Every single person has a unique story that can change the world, but not many ever make that critical promise to themselves to tell it.” ~Tyler Tervooren at Advanced Riskology [...]
I promise to stay true to myself and not withold my gifts and talents. I have an understanding of animals and my message to humanity is that they think and feel too. I aim to teach people to not live out of fear, but out of love for themselves, others and the planet.
I commit to making tools that help people master their own minds and bodies, and to help inspire them to do so. -Ramuel Gall