Commitment - Just a Word Without Meaning?

Lately I have been wondering what makes it so hard for people to keep their word.

From my parents I have learned to speak with integrity. It is very important for me to say what I mean and to mean what I say.

My observations in my professional and in my personal life seem to be very different.

I know many busy people and they always say that they have a lot of commitments - places to go, friends to see, errands to run. However, I believe there is a difference between these kinds of commitments and commitment itself, which is an internal process.

Commitment is self-initiated and each of us makes our own commitments. Many times these commitments turn into "should do" activities and then turn into "no shows" or cancellations. Everyone knows that it is important to keep promises to oneself and to others but it simply is so much easier in theory than in real life.

In my opinion a commitment is a promise that we make to ourself or to others. Can it be that this lost its meaning?

Sometimes I feel that people really want to do something but simply can't follow through - life gets in the way so to speak. Other times there are individuals who "try to be" polite but have a tough time being real and saying how they really feel.

Bottom line is that not keeping our word, does not make us look good and certainly does not earn us a very good reputation.

I learned once in a seminar "how you do anything is how you do everything". If you start observing the people around you, you will realize how true this statement is.

Unfortunately I see very few people who hold themselves to rules and agreements so it's almost impossible for them to hold agreements to others if they can't hold them to themselves in the first place. Do you agree?

For the longest time this was very upsetting for me but I have now made peace with the fact that I cannot change people and their behaviours. Whenever I am faced with experiences like that, I do the best to change my perspective. My realization is that I can only lead by example and I hope to inspire the people around me to keep their word.