My System For Keeping Microcommitments

I’ve always tried to be a really intentional person but recently I’ve been ramping it up even further. I’ve been challenging myself to live more consciously, more aware of the moment to moment details, and holding myself to a higher standard of living in integrity with them.

This is what I’ve noticed showing up for me: How many soft commitments do we make socially just to be pleasant? 

Telling someone you want to make plans to catch up or do something… 

Letting someone know that you’ll follow up about a recommendation you have for them… 

Checking in on someone who mentioned they were struggling with something…

Speaking for myself, as I’ve been elevating my awareness I’m now seeing all of these little mentions I’m making that pass by without serious thought or follow through. 

And it’s got me thinking - What if I chose to honor my word that much more? What if I didn’t just say it in passing but I actually meant it?

Of course I’ve never had the intention of blatantly lying, mentioning something to someone with no intention to deliver on it. But I’m noticing that it hasn’t always translated to action. 

So now I’ve placed a major focus on following through on all of it. 

It starts with increased consciousness so that I’m more aware of what I’m committing to, I have a deliberate follow up system where I immediately document any and all microcommitments I make, and then I put those things I said I was going to do on my daily schedule so that when I have the time and space to do something about it, I can.

For example: I had conversations with a handful of people the week leading up to my trip to Nicaragua. They said “let me know how that goes” or “send me pictures” and I responded, “I absolutely will!”

I could let that commitment pass and hope I remembered to follow up about it… Or I could be intentional about ensuring I did. I’m prioritizing the latter.

So I immediately notated in my task-management system “Follow up with Alex and Derek about Nicaragua”. Then when I organized all my to-dos from the day, I set a deadline to follow up the day after I returned home. Then when it came to creating my schedule for the day, I was notified of that commitment, put 30 minutes in my calendar to do follow ups, and got it done.

Again it’s a deliberate system to make sure I’m not making soft commitments that I’m not delivering on.

Why?

Because how you do one thing is how you do everything. And if I train my mind to consistently do what I say I’m going to do, even the small things, then I take myself more seriously when I say I’m going to do big things.

It’s a matter of self-trust, and it’s earned every day.

 If you want to see some of the systems I use to hold myself to a higher standard, click here to check it out.

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