# Types of Commitment *This is a post about how I see **commitments made to oneself[^1]** in my life. There is no larger point to it except to refine my thinking by writing and sharing it with others. And maybe find some insights for myself to incorporate.* I would characterise my relationship with commitment as very typical. I go through life making commitments to myself, family, friends, colleagues and I suck at keeping most of them. Examples of this would be: "Hey! We should totally get together for dinner" and then never following up to set a date. Or telling myself "I want to read 30 books this year" but never making time for it. It's not that I don't truly "mean" it when I am making these commitments. They are not disingenuous. However, there are other commitments that I will try my hardest to keep and for the most part even succeed. I have found that this has little to do with the ease of keeping the commitment, but rather the **disincentive** associated with breaking it. (I know, it's not a groundbreaking original idea. But hey! I'm just thinking out loud.) This led to me classify the commitments[^2] I have into the following buckets, based on their costs: [^1]: We're not talking about familial, romantic, legal commitments etc. [^2]: This classification does not work per sé for commitments where the stakes are far too high. Those usually fall into one or more buckets, which only multiply the total cost. #### 1. Social Commitments Eg: Telling your friends that you will run a half-marathon in 6 months, telling your partner that "I will do X in Y" I find this to be the most "dangerous" type of commitment. Let me explain. Rationally, this feels like it should be a strong form of commitment. Maybe even the strongest. You are making the commitment public in front of people who you will regularly see, and could hold you accountable. But this is a trap. When you tell your friends or your partner that you want to do something, they are usually encouraging / impressed by the statement of the commitment. And if you are the kind of person who loves validation (show me who isn't, and I'll show you a liar), this feels awesome. You get the dopamine hit of already having achieved the goal, even though you didn't. And now that you did, the incentive to actually do it is low. It feels like you already got the payoff, so why do you need to do the work? But the even bigger issue with social commitments is that the disincentive is almost non-existent. Most people don't remember about your goal or even if they do, don't care too much about you achieving the goal. And even if they bring it up and you reply with the fact that you didn't achieve it, they will be quick to console you. No one is going to stop being friends with you because you didn't hold up a social commitment. In other words, there is almost no cost to breaking a social commitment. ##### 1.1 Parasocial Commitments Eg: An influencer asking their followers to keep them accountable for something. I wanted to mention this because it seems like there is actually a cost, but I would argue that this is actually just a cost stemming from the other types (Reputational, Financial) #### 2. Financial Commitments Eg: "I will pay for an expensive and nice gym so that I will feel the need to go, for not wasting the money." These are overrated in my opinion, unless the financial cost is actually far too high. But for the most part, the financial cost is not high enough when people make these commitments. I think the evidence is in the fact that gyms, or any kind of subscriptions exist and are profitable. Enough said. #### 3. Reputational Commitments[^3] Commitments made at work might seem like they are a variant of financial commitments, however, I assert that they are actually more Reputational Commitments. In most companies, the culture and velocity of work is so fucked that people can scrape by their careers consistently underdelivering. No one will fire you for not delivering on a professional commitment[^4]. But, most people hate their jobs but still work hard to deliver on their commitments. The workplace is all about your reputation. You want to do well at the company and deliver on your commitments, not because of a financial cost but a reputational one. You want to be person who is known as someone who can get things done. You want to have the reputation that you are reliable. The true cost of breaking a reputational commitment is reputational damage. The damage to your reputation is a very high cost at the workplace (even more so than in social situations), and if your reputation at work is bad enough you will 100% get fired[^5]. [^3]: I am not thrilled about this name. If you have a better one, reach out. [^4]: Yes, if you consistently underdeliver for a long time, you can still get fired. But it's hard to argue that there is no reputational damage if you are consistently underdelivering. Conversely, "failing upwards" is a real phenomenon in certain companies where charismatic people can scrape by on their great reputation but underdelivering consistently. [^5]: As a resident of the EU, I rush to say "if the labour laws allow it". #### 4. Self Commitments[^6] [^6]: I am not thrilled about this name. If you have a better one, reach out. Eg: New years resolutions. We're all familiar with this. We do it everyday and all the time. We tell ourselves that we will get something and then we don't do it. After all, you only told yourself and no one else right? So no one would know. It's fine to not do it. The problem is, in the short term, we are so very generous and forgiving to ourselves. We tell ourselves all sorts of comforting stories to console ourselves of why we did not deliver. %%this is not really a problem - rephrase the start of the paragraph%% However, we do end up internalizing these failures. Every time we tell ourselves that we "cannot do something" or "that seems crazy/impossible/too hard" it is the united voice of broken self commitments of the past. **The true cost of not delivering on a commitment to yourself is damage to your self esteem.** And the flip side is so clearly visible too. Once you make a self commitment to something and you do achieve it (say getting good at a job, actually losing weight, getting fit, learning a new skill) then this only reinforces the commitment and makes it stronger. And united voices of successfully delivered self commitments push you to be able to do bigger and better things. It is faint voice cheering you on behind self-doubt. --- Not every single commitment you make needs to be a self commitment. It is not even feasible to do that. However, I am starting to believe that it could be beneficial to classify a commitment when you make it - just so you already know how strongly you internally feel about delivering it. It is a step in the direction of living a more intentional life. ---- _Published: 08/01/2025_