Commitment Video to the "Successfully Completing College" Series

Let’s talk now about the attitude of commitment. In order to most correctly or fully understand commitment it is important to remember that motivation is the fire that fuels commitment. If motivation is what maintains the desire to achieve one’s goals, commitment is what’s needed to maintain the discipline to accomplish all the daily routines day in and day out required to eventually accomplish one’s goals. Without motivation, one’s commitment will falter and without commitment, one’s motivation will end up only as good intentions. Just think about Olympic athletes, they have to maintain a level of motivation in order to maintain the desire and the zeal to be the very best at what they do. But this motivation itself becomes a fuel, a fire of sorts, that begins to enable their commitment to do all the daily requirements and responsibilities needed to finally achieve their goals… be it training, be it maintaining a certain diet, be it going to various classes they need to take in order to learn more about their skills. Whatever is required for the athletes to succeed in their goal that is accomplished through commitment? It is no different with a college student. They too must learn how to maintain the motivation to keep their zeal to stay in school, to continue in their classes, and to continue on with that motivation that leads them to the place of commitment. It is very similar to that of an Olympic athlete. For instance, it is important to do all of your assignments. The college student must be committed to not missing a single assignment. All assignments, whether big or small, they end up counting for lots of points. I have noticed myself as a professor, how many points can add up by seemingly small little assignments throughout the course of an entire semester. It is actually, at the end of the semester, quite shocking for many students who have begun to miss these small assignments from the very beginning and at the very end of the class, at the end of the semester, they begin to see all of the large amount of points they could have had. And I also notice that when students begin at the start of their course to miss various assignments, very quickly patterns will be set up that they will continue to do the same throughout the semester. To be successful in college it must become a top priority. College can not be done on the fly and one who attempts to do so truly will be building a recipe for disaster. The successful student also must learn not to get too discouraged when he or she doesn’t do as well as they hoped to on a particular assignment. The goal should be that, not of perfect performance as much as that of perfect attendance. In other words, keep on going, don’t give up, attending all your classes, doing all the things you need to do is far more important than being so concerned about perfect performance on each and every assignment. The successful student is one who simply shows up for class, they do their assignments, they write their papers, and they get whatever help they might need in order to continue to do well in their class. This is the student who succeeds; this is the student who has learned how to implement in their lives the attitude of motivation and the attitude of commitment.