What's Your Most Important Commitment in Your Business?

Clients? Staff? Deadlines? Budgets? Those will both get you pretty far. But none are sustainable without this one commitment. Your most important commitment is to yourself. You are the heart of your business. Without you, nothing would be possible.

Keep your commitments to yourself, or you will undermine the most important relationship you have, the one with yourself. If you don't support yourself in health, maintaining your energy, and doing what you say you're going to do, you will eventually have nothing left to offer clients, staff, or even family.

One of the basics of business that I teach is, do what you say you're going to do. Most people readily apply that to clients.

What happens when we make a commitment to a client and don't keep it? Perhaps the first time, the client will be forgiving and just let it pass. You might have a conversation about it, but it won't necessarily change things in your relationship. If it happens a second time, the client will be less forgiving. They start to wonder, can I really rely on this person? After a third time, you start to drop down the list of people they will call, or you'll just be seen as someone who won't deliver, and drop off the list entirely.

Most of us wouldn't dream of not keeping a client commitment. Don't you deserve the same treatment?

The thing is, many of us don't treat ourselves as well as we treat our clients. We make a commitment, then let it slide in favor of doing something else, or by letting fear have its way.

When you commit to something scary, when you're staring fear in the face, do whatever you can to get support. Then once you commit to yourself, do whatever it takes to do what you said you're going to do.

Don't make commitments lightly. Your words are powerful. They have meaning beyond you - they call in the larger forces that come into play when you commit to something.

You need to be able to trust yourself above anyone else. When you fail to keep your commitments, even seemingly small ones, time after time, you'll lose faith in yourself. And then you are in real trouble. Your business depends on you.

You grow only by what you do. Thinking about it isn't enough. Growing requires doing some difficult things. And committing to doing them helps get you over the fear so you can do what needs to be done.

To have a successful business, you have to be able to rely on yourself. Keep your commitments to yourself. You'll be nurturing the most important relationship you'll ever have.