Serving or helping others comes along with a commitment.

I would define commitment as whatever it is you promised yourself to achieve. It might be slightly different from the promise you are making towards your clients, colleagues, family, or friends. But they are linked.

The commitment guides your actions and leads your decisions whenever you perceive the reactions others have to your support. The commitment often pushes you on, especially when the outcome has become important to you. Not reaching the outcome or not acting on the tangible elements of your commitment lead to an inner dialogue many wouldn’t dare to have with friends.

It happens when the commitment is involving something that is beyond your control or when it is only linked to actions.

Take for example a commitment to help a colleague learn something new. If the colleague doesn’t progress as you’d like him to, there are many chances that you’ll try to make it happen without noticing if your colleague has already learned what he looked for.

Or take the idea that to learn something yourself you’ve decided to read 15 pages every day. It’s a worthy goal, but what happens if every day the 15 pages require a different amount of your time? What is missing here is a sense of progress or a plan that helps you assess the learning and how it links to your actions.

Commitment isn’t fixed or rigid in its actions. It requires adjustment to the situation and what it actually is you are seeking to achieve. And it may take some time until you find out what it is you are trying to achieve. Especially when you are stepping into something you’ve never done before. It takes time to be able to define a suitable objective.