Hi everyone, its Pat here. So happy to be doing a Facebook Live today because this has been a really interesting morning, I would say, on Facebook. I pop into Facebook three times a day. That’s my success habit. I do it first thing in the morning, I check in at noon, and I check in at the end of the day; 10 to 15 minutes, the timer’s on, that’s it. I will say there have been a number of posts by my friends that have actually caused me to sit back and laugh out loud. Now, that’s rare. I’ll chuckle a little bit sometimes, but the laugh out loud, there has been some good stuff there, particularly about the weather because that seems to be the topic these days.

Secondly, there have been some really great posts on there, and the one that just came up through the lunch hour was posted by Susan Hyatt. I shared it on my page, and that post really caught my attention, caused me to stand up and say, “Bravo, Susan, brilliant post.” Great content. Very timely, and so I ditched the content that I intentionally had originally wanted to share with you today, and I want to piggyback on what Susan Hyatt wrote.

Go to my Facebook, page scroll down, and look at the post that I just shared. Really, it boils down to one word. Commitment. It has been a pet peeve of mine for a while now, and she just kind of brought it all to the surface when she talked about the whole concept of commitment and Beyoncé, so it was a great read.

I want to talk to you about commitment and simplifying. That’s the direction I’m going with this Facebook Live, so I love the whole aspect of simplifying your life, and it really does tie to the practice of commitment, to the action of commitment, and here’s what I see and here’s what I feel from different people, and it’s a high level of frustration for myself too, at times.

Here’s the thing. Many of us are over-committed. We have this poor, nasty habit of saying yes to everything, and therefore, it sets us up for failure, it sets us up for overwhelm, it sets us up for fatigue, and to even go deeper with that, what many people are doing is actually self-sabotaging because they are over-committed. I’m talking about everything from volunteer work through to – and I’m going to talk about my industry – through to the commitment in terms of paid contracts for services. So my rant right now is the fact that people are saying, “Yes, yes, yes. Yes, I’ll do this. Yes, I’ll go there, and yes I’ll help out here,” and then don’t show up. They hide behind email and send an email to say, “Oh, this came up and I can’t make it.”

Many people are just out and out lying, which annoys me to no end. Out and out lying around the fact that oh something else came up, so they’re not going to show up, or secondly, what really causes me sadness, what breaks my heart is that people are over-committing with good intentions at the time, but what I find in working with my clients is that, actually, they don’t have a clear plan for their day, for their business, for their life, and therefore, it’s easy to fall into that trap of over-commitment.

I had the pleasure this morning of working with two young people from our church. I’m part of the leadership development program, so two of the leadership interns came here and I had the privilege and the honor of spending two hours with them to talk to them about living by intent, living with purpose, and once you’ve got clarity on that, it’s easy to say no to certain things, but when I go back to the topic of people being over-committed, it’s because you don’t have a plan. You clearly and simply don’t have a plan for your day, you don’t have a plan for your life, you don’t have a plan for your business.

So what can we do about this? I see it as an epidemic. I see people who are backing out of volunteer committee meetings. They’re backing out of coaching contracts. They’re backing out of events where you’ve said you’re going go to an event, a retreat, a concert, like in the blog post there by Susan. Backing out, what does that say to the world? What does it say to your world? And more importantly, you are losing the power of your word and your reputation.

Here’s what you can do about it. Here are my simple tips for getting past that. First of all, why did you commit? Always come back to that question. What prompted you in the first place to say yes? Was it guilt? I know that’s a big one for many women. Was it guilt? Was there an expectation? Perhaps there was some peer pressure, and you were in a group and felt that you needed to say yes to something. Is it simply fear of missing out on something?

These can be simple reasons why you keep saying yes. You keep making a commitment, and then reality kicks in and it’s like oh my gosh, I can’t follow through on this. So first part is look at your why. What was the reason for saying yes in the first place? The second part of moving past this epidemic is to review your commitments. Stop today and take a look at your calendar. What have you committed to and why have you committed to it, and break it into two columns, one under the column of I felt I had to; therefore, self-imposed pressure and stress, and another column of I want to, I choose to, and I intend to. Break it into those two columns.

Now that you’ve got the two columns clearly identified, then assess as well, with some of these commitments, unpaid commitments, like volunteer work, and is that under the have to column? There’s a clear message there. And/or are these paid commitments, whether it’s a concert ticket – again, as explained in the blog post – or is it a paid coaching contract that you made a commitment to? Take a look at that and really assess the paid versus the free, and again, I have to versus a want to, choose to.

The next step then, and moving forward, is to make a decision. Once you’ve taken a look, you’ve reviewed, you’ve assessed whether you really want to – however, that doesn’t apply to contractual commitments, when you said yes and you signed a contract, you’re in. You’re in. You need to stay in and follow through on your word, and then you need to make a decision so that you can simplify your life, and a lot of those decisions you’re going to find are under that one column, which typically are “free,” like volunteer work, and the feeling of I have to. Again, whether that was associated with guilt, with fear of missing out, with expectation, and then make a decision around that. This is your life, people. You’re in the driver’s seat. It’s up to you to take charge and then execute, and don’t hide behind email.

If and when you execute and you decide to make some changes on this, and I encourage you to do that, take the weight off your shoulders, breathe again, and live your life on a want to, choose to, love it basis, which I learned how to do under the mentorship of Lou Tice many years ago. Execute, and for me, that means picking up the phone. Call people, be a professional, and you don’t need to make a ton of excuses. Just clearly explain the why for the call, and then actually follow up with a thank you card for the invitation to be involved and be included in the first place, but the phone call will be the explanation as to why you can no longer follow through on that commitment. Again, I’m talking about the free services, in particular, on this one.

Those are my key points. Like I said, Susan, your blog post really just hit me here. I stood up said, “Yeah, bravo.” This is an epidemic for people who do not follow through on their word. Don’t be one of them. You’re better than that and you deserve to live a better life than that. All right, that’s my rant. Those are my tips for success. Execute, and also hit the share button. This is an epidemic and there are a lot of people who would benefit from hearing this particular Facebook Live. Thanks for being here everyone.