thank you that's that's kind of you um commitment is the foundation of Great accomplishments without commitment Amelia arheart wouldn't have become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean without commitment we wouldn't be able to enjoy all of the Olympic athletes from all over the world coming together every two years showing us both their physical and mental stamina at the highest level and without commitment a couple the Fishers from James City North Carolina wouldn't have set the Guinness World Record for marriage 86 years I've been married eight so I mean that's like oh man fabulous incredible lifetime of family a lifetime of love and I think we all intuitively understand this right to achieve greatness in the areas that are important to us requires that we deeply invest ourselves and commit and as we do that it shapes a life for us what we often Overlook though are the ways in which all of our commitments the grand ones but also the smaller ones that we make shape our lives I'm going to start with a very small commitment that you make every day if you're here you made this commitment this morning the simple commitment to just simply get out of bed um can sometimes feel like a big commitment right you know those mornings where you don't really feel like getting out of bed but you know if you're going to accomplish anything that day you've got to at least start with getting out of bed you can't brush your teeth take a shower let alone get to work deal with your kids anything without that very first so congratulate yourself on that commitment that you did today right so yes so we understand that there are commitments where you know I don't have to think that much about some of these commitments I do them pretty automatically but there are some commitments in our lives that really do require a lot of thought and reflection and I'm thinking particularly about our lives at work and in love I want to share with you a very surprising really startling um Gallop poll about how engaged people are with their jobs according to this Gallup poll only 13% of those surveyed classified themselves as being psychologically committed to their job which means they go they're excited to be there they're putting everything they have into their work on the other side we have 24% who really just hate their jobs they don't want to be there and in fact are activ L working against the goals of the organization I hope you don't work with one of these people if you do I'm sure you know that you do um so those are interesting statistics alone but what I find particularly fascinating is actually the majority of folks the 23s who say that they are just not engaged so they're committed enough to go to work day in and day out so they get there and they're there and they're going through the motions and that's really what it is that's really how they described it is I'm just going through the motions but that's the interesting thing is that even if you are just committed enough to get there and go through the motions because you spend so much time there that's still shaping your life in many ways now there can't be anybody who's just going through the motions in relationships right nobody's just walking the walk talking that okay um well we know the divorce statistics I don't need to reiterate those um but I think there's also a very interesting Trend in terms of cohabitation what a lot of people don't realiz is that there are a lot of people cohabitating today um and and they do so for some interesting reasons that that I think show shows us something about commitment the most important thing and first of all I should say I don't have anything against cohabitation personally but what the data says is that people who cohabitate before they marry are statistically significantly more likely to later divorce and that's a very interesting finding that surprises a lot of people and it surprised researchers too and so they all sort of like how do we figure out what this is what's going on here why is this occurring and the answer seems to lie at least somewhat in why people decide to move in together without marrying in the first place when researchers ask there's two big reasons that people share one is well it was just kind of easy you know like my toothbrush was there so why shouldn't I be you know like you know my stuff was there anyway or the rent was cheaper or it just seemed like you know we just kind of did it right the second reason is that some people consider it a test right so maybe I'm not sure how committed I am long term to this relationship so we'll try it out we'll see how it goes the issue seems to be though is that even if couples don't pass the test and it turns out they're not super well well matched for each other they also they often end up married anyway and the issue seems to be that what researchers call it is sliding versus deciding does that make sense so when we're sometimes we commit because we've really made a conscious decision to do so in marriage and otherwise and sometimes we do it because we just we were investing more and more in something and we started cutting off other choices and all of a sudden we found ourselves committed to something that maybe wasn't so right and then we began to question it so whether in relationships or in romantic uh or at work there's all kinds of areas of Our Lives that we can think about this and and how does commitment shape Our Lives whether we're really thoughtful about it or whether we do it unconsciously ultimately we do get to choose right all kinds of commitment shape Our Lives the constructive ones and the destructive ones the ones that you know we we think about the ones that we don't think about the large and small all of them shape our lives in a different way um but ultimately the power is we get to make that choice if we decide to stop and look at our lives and say hey what am I committed to what am I really deeply committed to I'd like to tell you a little bit about um how I got interested in this topic it it uh I don't know if I was sliding or deciding to be honest um I uh I'm a university professor and I got the opportunity to take a sabatical and in my sabatical I decided to write a proposal for a book about commitment and I was really invested in writing the proposal and I did it so well that I got an instant offer um unfortunately I'd put in The Proposal that I would have the book ready for them in nine months and that included all the research that I hadn't yet read and all the interviews I hadn't yet conducted and so um I was at a choice Point like we often find ourselves at a choice point where I say okay am I going to commit to this am I going to sign this contract and then I really got to get it done right or am I going to keep doing you know my life is nice I have I'm a college professor I have I've been married eight years I have a good life I don't have to have this or you know but that's those are those moments where you have to really say what do I really want what do I really want to commit to and when I did make that commitment I found that several things happened one it shaped my life for nine months it shaped my my life it kind of like you know being pregnant shapes your life you know you got nine months you're going to do this thing right and uh and every day was shaped my husband's life was shaped my co-workers life was shaped my friend's life was shaped it wasn't even just my life that was shaped by the commitment but my life has been shaped since then too by making that commitment I have an opportunity to to be here and talking with you the other thing I learned is that you really kind of have to have a plan to do commitment well right we like to think I think that you just say I'm going to be committed and then you are like how many people say that right like oh yeah I'm committed right but commitment isn't just a word it's really a process how do you how do you actually create commitment within yourself how do you actually develop it sometimes that requires a plan part of that plan I found was needing to let go of other commitments and that can be really challenging to let go of other important commitments to sort of prioritize your commitments that's a tough thing isn't it I mean to figure that out and so you know I let my husband go no I'm just kidding just joking he was great he really was my my sanity but um but I did for example and I gave up a lot of things during that time but one thing was I'd been on a tennis team for eight years and I gave that up so and I had that was a process to let go of a commitment too do you ever find that like you said you you quit your job you don't just say I quit I mean you'd like to right in one way but in another way it really is a process and sometimes it requires like going through it planning it out figuring it out so at this point you're probably wondering okay well what is commitment then is it the same thing as an obligation is it the same thing as a promise here's the definition that I use from social psychology commitment is the experience of being psychologically attached to something and intending to continue that's what shapes Our Lives being psychologically attached not an obligation not like yeah you sure I'm committed you know not even a promise it's are we really psychologically attached and you know this is a matter of degrees a lot of people also think of commitment as an onoff kind of thing you're either committed or you're not how many times have we heard that right but it is a matter of degrees I can be very highly committed I can have a low level of commitment or I can have something in between like those you know two-thirds of the workers that are saying you know I'm just I'm going but I'm not really going you know with my full self and I would say that any of those levels of commitment shapes our Liv so it's just a question of you know thinking through okay what am I really committed to how much is it enough because commitment can vary the question is is there a way that we can increase commitment within ourselves to the things that matter most and will shape our lives in positive ways and then are there also ways that we can learn to let go of the commitments that are holding us back or in some cases are really quite hurtful for us and I think the answer is yes and I come to this answer from a significant amount of research really a lot of research over years and years by a lot of really smart people who have found that there are some factors that predict how committed will be there are four factors in particular that when we consider them together have a highly predictive value in terms of how committed you'll be to your job to your relationship to your goals to your your practices to a sports team do you ever wonder like why why am I more committed not committed here why did the commitment level change this explains it and I think we can use this in a way that we can Empower ourselves if commitment is going to shape Our Lives why don't I how could I have a role in that and not just let commitment happen to me so I'm going to talk about the first two factors okay so these are the four factors that predict commitment according to Social Science research these are my terms these terms have gone by these words you know there have been different words over the years but these are the words I like to use the first two words are treasures and troubles and the reason I put these two together is we really have to consider these two together it's kind of like cost benefit analysis you kind of it's hard to just think about one without thinking about the other right so if you and you can do this right now you can think about a commitment in your life what do you treasure about it right what are the benefits what are what do you value about it what kind of meaning does it bring to you maybe Joy right and then you sort of counterbalance that with okay how troubling is it what are the problems what are the difficulties what are the things I have to kind of put up with and and troubles vary a lot too right so some troubles are like eh it's a little difficult but you know it's worth it because I'm going for the gold medal right other troubles are really significant and you stop and you say I don't know if I want to continue this because satisfaction is a major predictor of commitment it isn't the only thing it's not just like if you're satisfied you stay if you're not satisfied you go thankfully it's not quite that simple but satisfaction is a huge predictor of commitment so I want to tell you about a friend of mine um Melinda keckler Ali or actually Melinda om Al keckler um she was the the news anchor for Channel 2 news in my city for many years and um she loved the job it was a dream job absolutely fabulous loved it loved it loved it treasures at the Wazoo right and then she had a baby and it was like oh this is so much work I want to be with my baby this is a little troubling y d continues on another baby first child goes to school now she realizes okay I have the news anchor shift 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. my kids at school during the day I'm never seeing my child this this is now the TR troubles are really outweighing the treasures at this point right so the next thing is contributions so I take a look at my satisfaction my treasures and troubles but then I also take a look at well how much have I contributed we do this consciously but we also do this unconsciously piles of research from so many fields I mean just piles and piles I could just show you the piles right say the more you invest in something your time your energy your Talent your creativity your love your heart even sharing who you are as you go through that process you become more and more committed to for good or for bad right so this is what exactly what happened to Melinda so she had gone to school for this job she'd taken all the internships she went she did the the horrible like 400 a.m. shifts to finally earn her way to get to this job how could she just let it go but she was really troubled and she sat down with her husband finally and he'd seen her for years okay so if you're in this position understand you're not alone for years she was caught in that space of do I stay with this or not and he's finally said to her you know what why don't we just let it go and she said that in that moment it was like a whole new world opened up to her you mean I can just let this go I don't have to let my sunk cost influence the rest of my life the last factor and we put these all together and I'll show you that in a second so treasures and troubles contributions now choices are something that can take away from our commitment we usually think of choices as a good thing and often they are right but if you want commitment choices are actually a bad thing for you right because if you see a lot of other really attractive options I always sort of picture the guy because we all know we all have a friend who's like this guy right and he like he thinks he can have any woman right he's like thinking like like Gizelle is going to be you know in his dating you know unless you're Tom Brady Guy this is not going to happen for you and yet as he really believes that he has all these great choices he's less committed to any woman he's actually dating does that make sense yeah so with Melinda you know she didn't think that she had other choices she was like I was specifically trained for this job there's nothing else I can do but when she decided to open her eyes and consider some things she realized that the skills that she'd learned as a professional journalist were actually skills that could be applied to a lot of jobs and she ended up in the pr field she's currently the um she does a great job in communication Communications and marketing at my University and she's totally committed I asked her I said what do you think you know cuz she's you know used to being on camera and all that and she I said what do you think I should wear and she said blue and orange you know cuz I'm at Boise State so blue and orange you know she's just so dedicated to her job now and she gets to be totally dedicated to her family at the same time she figured out a way knowing that commitment would shape her life how did she want to shape her commitments here's the whole equation put together um I call it the commitment equation didn't make this up myself other than the words this is all in the literature for anyone to take a look at commitment the level of our commitment is dictated by to a large to a large extent how much we treasure something minus how troubling it is plus what we've contributed minus the other good choices that we see we know that commitment is going to shape Our Lives in significant ways so why don't we shape our commitment in significant ways and create a life we truly [Applause] value