Committing to Work

A lot of pain and anxiety in life is caused by not committing to decisions. The most prevalent example of this is in our work.

When we get jobs, especially at low or mid-level, it is usually on an indefinite basis. “You’re hired” instead of “we’re bringing you on for 12 months.”

You work until you are fired or you quit. You can be fired at any time or you can quit at any time.

This indefinite view of work leads to over-thinking and fear about the long-term.

The better way to think about work is with definite and finite commitments of time. To exercise power over your perspective and view your ongoing employment as sequential and finite time commitments.

No matter what your employment situation is, contract or not, you can choose to think of your work in a finite timeframe. You can say, I am fully committed for the next six months and then I will evaluate if I want to “re-up” and commit for the next six months.

This perspective is especially important when you start a job. Learning and adapting to a new role is always a challenge. As a result, you really won’t have an idea of what the long-term day to day is like until you’ve gone through at least few months of learning. Evaluating your long-term prospects in this initial stage is a recipe for feeling bad and making bad decisions.

100% commitment to a period of time creates clarity and freedom day to day. You don’t waste time or energy questioning your decisions after a good or bad day. You’ve clearly commited to evaluating your position in the future, and in doing so you give yourself the mental space and clarity to dive full on into your work today like you would if you were going to do it forever. You set yourself up to make better decisions in the future when you actually have good evidence to base your decision on.