Follow Through
Our focus this week — Nov 19-Nov 25: “Commitment”
Today’s MotD: Follow. Through. This week we explore the “C” word : commitment. Today we focus on “follow through”: what we do after we’ve made a commitment—either to ourselves, to others, or to a project/task.
Amelia Earhart is quoted as saying “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” Once we’ve made a commitment, the rest is follow through—tenacity. Here’s where it requires some honesty on our part. Will we stick with it to the end ? Will we gradually drop off and hope it goes away or that someone else will come along to take over ? Will we regret that we made this commitment in the first place but stick with it because we said we would ?
What also makes the difference in our follow through is whether the commitment we made was to someone or something else or was it made to ourselves ? I know for me, if the commitment was made to someone/thing else, I usually hang in there either because I really want to do it or because I believe in honoring my commitments. And because it is to someone/thing else, there’s also a sense of accountability attached to it.
If the commitment was to myself or something I do for myself or my business—in other words I’m only accountable to myself—the option to put it off or not do it at all becomes more challenging to stay committed…mainly it depends on how important it is to me.
For instance, I’m strongly committed to releasing the excess weight I carry on my body. I’m tracking my food and weight everyday as well as walking 1.5 miles at least five days a week. I’m sincerely committed to my husband of 35 years—even with our ups and downs.
I’m also strongly committed to my mandalas of the day/week/month/year blog posts. Although, I have to admit, I’m a couple of days late with this week’s mandala of the week. But because I’m accountable only to myself with making these happen, I can forego being punctual. This is where I need to be careful, though. Since there’s nothing really to hold me to these commitments, I could just stop them altogether which would have little if any affect on anyone else—except me and my business…and that right there is why I stay committed.
Essentially, our challenge around “follow through” is firmly establishing that yes, we’re committed to completing or adhering to the “task” -OR- letting the appropriate person(s) know that we are no longer able to or want to fulfill it. The sooner the better especially if someone else is counting on us to follow through.
Like I mentioned two days ago, I had made a commitment to walk with my neighbor every day. It took me a couple of months to work up the nerve to opt out. Had I done it sooner, or better yet, realized that I really didn’t want to do it in the first place, I could have saved us the awkwardness and embarrassment of canceling and potentially hurting their feelings even more.
How about you ? When it comes to commitments, how’s your follow-through ? Are your priorities different depending on whether the commitment is for someone else or for you ? If you change your mind about a commitment, do you admit it right away, put it off as long as you can, or do you hang in there anyway ?
BTW…Here’s the before…the front and back view of today’s puzzle piece and the pretty ceramic box that holds all my numbers from which I randomly choose each day’s puzzle piece number:
Peace & Blessings,
Maureen
The Mandala Lady
🔆 transforming soul whispers into mandalas and channeled messages
ABOUT THE 2025 Mandalas of the Day
Throughout the year, I’ll be building one large (48”x48”) Tibetan-styled Mandala one piece at a time…one puzzle piece at a time, that is. The mandala design and the reversed puzzle side were printed on artist-quality watercolor paper. The forward facing puzzle side was printed on a 48”x48” wood panel.
Each day, at random, I’ll be painting in watercolors one of the 365 watercolor puzzle pieces, that by the end of the year will become Archangel Mandala #4. Read more about the Archangel Series. The word/message for each piece will be inspired by Melody Beattie’s book “52 Weeks of Conscious Contact”.
Ultimately, the message of this mandala is about how we are all uniquely part of the one.
Mandala of the Day 