You’ve decided, you’ve committed, now it’s time to start talking.

Yup. Out loud. Where people can hear you.

(Believe me, I understand that this can seem like a very good reason NOT to tell people what you’re working on. *smile*)

Talking about our passions is scary.

It’s scary because we’re vulnerable, exposed. Because it really, really matters. And we don’t want to mess it up.

When your passion or idea lives only in your head, it’s safe. Safe from criticism, safe from questions. Safe from … reality.

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Talking about your passion helps remove the scary. It normalizes it. It’s not that your thing becomes ordinary or less special, it just gets less terrifying to tell people about it. And, you get better at talking about it. Clearer and more concise.

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It’s like  soloing in an improv.

I’ll get an idea (or just the seed of an idea) and I don’t know if it will work. In my perfect world, I could have my ideas all figured out before I shared them with anyone. That’s not all bad. There’s a time for letting thoughts ripen or percolate.

BUT … Keeping quiet makes working out the idea harder because other people can’t respond to what I’m doing. More important, they can’t support what I’m doing.

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There’s another problem with working it all out ahead of time.

A lot of the time you can’t.

Sure, I can have a brilliant idea for a solo, but if I never give voice to the idea, I can’t really figure out how it goes. You have to sing it  to hear it. You have to tell a story to find out how it ends.

Talking your idea through with someone else helps sort it out. Comments and questions from other people help you organize your thoughts or find solutions you couldn’t have come up with on your own.

Remember, you get decide how you want to talk about your thing. You can ask for feedback. You can tell people you’re not ready for feedback. You can meet one on one or organize a think tank. Start with safe people — family, friends — and then widen your talking circle to include peers, mentors and experts.

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When people know what you’re doing, they can help you. They’ll send you ideas, contacts, and links to web sites. They’ll do some of the work for you. They’ll tell their friends about you.

And when the subject of your passion comes up, so will your name.

More on committing:

“Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.”
— W.H. Murray, mountaineer

“Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.”
— Tom Robbins, author

“Looking back, all the time and steps I took to make that decision were really about getting ready to make and keep a commitment.”

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As I wrote this last week, I realized that the line between deciding and committing is very, very fine. Once you’ve decided, you have to commit to act upon the decision. Because a decision without a commitment is pretty pointless.

Committing takes away excuses and escape routes and simultaneously frees up energy to go after what you want. It also brings energy toward you. You’re no longer a moving target. The universe knows your address and it can find and send things your way. Mentors, classes, fans, resources and opportunities (yes, sometimes even money *smile*).

And, committing makes future decisions easier. With each subsequent decision, you need only ask, “Does this align with what I’ve already decided?”

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Of course, committing takes courage. And discipline.

Over 100 posts ago, I decided to write this blog about spontaneous singing. I freely admit I had no idea how to do it. I barely had my web site online and I don’t think I’d even heard of WordPress.

I wasn’t even really sure why I was doing it. I just knew I wanted to explore the life lessons I was learning from improv. And I decided that I wanted to share what I found out with others.

Six months ago, I decided (and committed) to add another weekly post — the Friday Food for Thought posts — to my posting schedule. Without commitment (and discipline), many of the posts on this blog would not have been written. (This 2am post certainly would not have been written! *smile*)

That’s the beauty of committing. Commitments make us figure it out. Commitments make us follow through. Commitments make us undertake new challenges and work through old ones. Commitments help us stay on course.

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Sometimes we confuse failing to commit with making bad decisions. If something doesn’t come together (or worse — falls apart), we might say “I never should have tried do that in the first place.” This might be true, but before we fault our decisions, we might want to look at how well we commit.