Commitment

The Wait-till-I-Get-There Syndrome:

“I’ll do my best when it counts.”

“When I get a lead, then I’ll put in the hours.”

“Once I get into Chamber Singers, they’ll see what I can do.”

There are two problems with this mindset. 

1. Every opportunity leads to the next one. If you don’t put in your best effort now, why are you going to advance to a better situation?

2. If you are waiting to build your skills till you get where you’re going, you won’t have the skills you need when you get there.

In Linchpin, Seth Godin writes about Steve, who has “decided he’s not being paid enough to bring his entire self to work, and he’s teaching all of us a lesson.” But “…while Steve is busy teaching the store a lesson, he’s teaching himself that this is the way to do his job. He’s fully expecting that his next job… – that’s when he’ll become the linchpin. If he waits for a job to be good enough to deserve his best shot, it’s unlikely that he’ll ever have that job.”

Whether you’re in the entry-level choir, on the fry station at McDonalds, or in the proverbial mailroom, you won’t advance unless you do your best.

Every. Single. Day.

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