Reading Conclusions | The Guilt of the Unfulfilled Commitment

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Over the past few months, I have focused on watching and observing myself. To stop at every detail in order to become better every day. In that observation I realized that my hours were passing faster than I wanted, I lacked time to do things and I hated having to sleep. I saw how great content creators (youtubers, instagrammers, twitters) shared their work in a fruitful way, with a huge amount of content that made me wonder -how do they do it?! - Were their days longer than mine? Did they have any machine that allowed them to stop time, so they could work as much as they needed before the sun went down?


I don't think so.

I concluded that the problem was not time, but my lack of skills to manage it effectively and productively. There were things I was doing that, without realizing it, were taking away my creative energy and time to build.

So I embarked on a search for solutions. I came up with an excellent work methodology called GTD (Get Things Done), which proposes a complex but quite logical system of organization to process all kinds of tasks, from the most complex to the most homely, from taking out the garbage to organizing the next shareholders meeting.

Today I read a part of the book that talked about commitments. How did you feel that time you had a work meeting with a colleague on Tuesday at 3:00 PM, you arrived on time as usual with your papers and folders, well prepared for the meeting but your colleague never showed up. It was 3:30 PM and you decided to take your things and go. How did you feel? Frustrated? Angry? Disrespected?

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Every time a person fails to make a commitment to another, that person completely destroys any trust that may be built up in that relationship.

Trust is one of those things that is difficult to build, and very easy to disappear in less than a second.

According to the author of GTD, when we make a commitment to ourselves and don't follow through, we are feeling that same sense of distaste. On the one hand we are destroying our confidence with ourselves, and on the other hand we are generating a feeling of guilt associated with having hurt ourselves. As a consequence, every time we have something close to us that reminds us of the unfulfilled commitment, we run away so that we do not have to confront it. I give an example:

You thought about picking up the mess you have in that close where you keep all the things you don't know where to put. Weeks have passed and you still don't do it but every time you pass by that door, you remember and feel bad, that's why you try to avoid that place in the house as much as possible.

This situation generates a terrible loop where, we feel bad for failing, we run away not to remember it, we fail more because we run away, we feel worse... repeat x99999999.

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There are 3 ways to break this loop:

1. Breaking the engagement.
2. Fulfilling the commitment.
3. Renegotiate the commitment.

Breaking commitments is not the most pleasant thing in the world, but learning to say "no" when you really can't take on any more also falls into this category and is something that will not only make you feel better, but will protect your relationships from huge disappointments. Contrary to popular belief, when you are honest with a person and say "no", he will most likely be surprised by your discipline and will appreciate your honesty because he knows it will save him headaches in the future.

On the other hand, you can also complicate the commitment, we are beings who feel pleasure in completing things and to achieve that... well, it would be time for another publication to explain how to achieve that. Just try to focus on one thing at a time and you will see how you get motivation from the things already done.

Finally, you can also renegotiate the commitment, lower the standards, do less, do the same but in a longer time frame. Put the commitment on a "someday/maybe" list and that way you don't feel the weight of having assumed 100% responsibility.

I, for one, need a lot of 1s and some 3s. Witnesses who have applied GTD in their lives say that the best thing that could have happened to them was to start saying no, I'll try the same thing and hopefully I can get similar results.

What about you guys? Do you have problems with your commitments? Do you feel bad when you fail to make a commitment to yourself?









Write it down in the comment box.

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