My System For Keeping Microcommitments

0:00Hey, self-improver. A better world starts with a better you and yes you can. So let's take another step toward your best self today. I try my best to be an 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. And this has showed up for me in this way. How many soft commitments do you 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 it 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?

1:06What 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 about things, mentioning something to someone with no intention to deliver on it. But I'm noticing that it hasn't always translated into 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. Then I have a deliberate follow-up system where I immediately document any and all micro commitments 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 in response, I said, I absolutely will. Now, I could let that

2:08commitment pass and hope I remember to follow up about it. Or I could be intentional about ensuring I did. And I'm prioritizing the latter. So I immediately noted it in my task management system, follow up with Alex and Derek about Nicaragua. Then when I organized all my to-do's from the day, I set a deadline to follow up the day after I returned home. And then when it came time 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 on the small things, then I take myself that much more seriously when I say I'm going to do the big things.

3:12It's a matter of self-trust and it's earned every day. If you want to see some of my systems in action that I use to hold myself to a higher standard, I've got them linked in the description. I'm Brian Ford and you grew today. Let's do it again tomorrow on self-improvement daily.