You say you are committed, really?

This year I started to learn the Greek language. I thought I was committed… but I realised I was not.

I had found a tutor. Paid for lessons. Scheduled the sessions and made space in my diary. Told friends and family about it, to really drive home the accountability. All these steps were a great system to support me, leaving me very little room to not follow through. But they weren’t enough.

Over the weeks, I began to reschedule sessions, and in some cases cancel them. Other, ‘more important’ things came up. I’d given myself 1% wriggle room to not attend Greek lessons, ‘just this one time’, and I’d given myself a 1% option to reschedule if I had to. In other words, I was only 99% in on the goal. I wasn’t fully committed. I was just ‘interested in learning Greek’.

When you’re committed to something, you’re 100% in on it. 99% is not 100%.

This is a great frame to use when taking on a new project of any type. High-performing coach John Assaraf sums it up beautifully:

‘If you are interested, you’ll do what’s convenient.  
If you’re committed, you’ll do WHATEVER it takes.’ 

At ServiceQ, we’re having some incredible conversations with clients past, present and new who have committed to transforming their service culture. We absolutely love meeting ‘the committed’. Occasionally, though, we come across a client who is ‘interested’ in shifting the dial, and this leads to some frank conversations – are they just interested, or are they committed?

We’ve totally got our clients covered when it comes to setting up a strong optimisation system to support their commitment. Their job is to check in on their level of commitment.

Here are three questions to help tease out ‘interest’ versus ‘commitment’ and see where you’re at:

1. What’s the cost or consequence of NOT rolling out a Service Transformation? (ie impact on sales, loyalty, reputation)
2. What benefit will committing to a Service Transformation provide to you, your team, and the business? (ie what’s your future aspirational state?)
3. What could you stop doing, remove or pause in your team or business to make room for your commitment? (ie where does this sit in your priorities list?)

Oh, and as for my language lessons – well, it’s still all Greek to me, and I’ve got a loooooong way to go to be able to hold a conversation in Greek. I can see now that I was way overcommitted in other areas of my life (other priorities needed my attention) and had set a very unrealistic goal. Once I sat more deeply with the vision of how my speaking Greek will positively impact my life and others’ lives, though, I gained plenty of motivation to learn. I’ll keep you posted on what I choose to do for 2025.