Commitment to a Goal versus Attachment to an Outcome
23 October 2006[Words: 1679, Reading Time: 7-8 minutes]Â
There is a massive difference between being committed and being attached. Commitment is being focused on yourself, and comes from a place of abundance or love. Attachment, on the other hand, comes from a place of scarcity and fear.
Commitment is focusing on doing your very best, giving yourself to the task 100%. Attachment is focusing on winning or losing, which may or may not have commitment. Attachment is the dependency on a particular outcome or result that will enable you to be happy or confident.
With outcome dependency, you place yourself into a state of deficiency. You start off at neutral. Then, you notice you don’t have x in your life. To put it in maths terms, you’re now 0-x. Achieving x, your outcome, brings you back up to neutral, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll be slightly better off.
By the way, this is generally how marketing works. You’re unaware you’re missing something. Through marketing, you’re made aware that you do not have this thing the marketers are promoting. If they amp it up correctly, you will focus on the lack of having that special something or experience until it reaches a point where you have to take action. You wonder how you went about your daily life for so long with this glaringly obvious defect. How you survived with such a vital and necessary part of you for so long is scary! If the marketers have done their job correctly, you’ll also be convinced that their product/service is the way of achieving it and making you one step closer to being complete.
This isn’t good or bad in itself. For example, if a gym educates you on the dangers of being overweight, and the importance of preventative measures to combat obesity, AND then signs you up, it is probably a good thing. Provided of course, they don’t ignore you once you’ve paid for a year in advance. Whether marketing is good or bad is a judgment call that only you can make. A good rule of thumb you could use is to ask “is this win/win?â€
Note: It’s perfectly okay, in fact it’s admirable that you can notice a mistake you’ve been making or a skill you’ve been lacking in, and then to go and take action. That is rectifying a skill set. Your talent was lacking, not that you were somehow incomplete.
Commitment, on the other hand, places no emotional weight on the outcome. You have faith that regardless of the outcome, you yourself, at your very core, will be okay, if not better.
With total commitment, you put everything into the task, but you don’t invest in the result. It’s a focus on doing your best, rather than winning. I’m not talking about some overly cuddly soccer mom you did your best type way of sugar coating a loss. Simply that you put 100% of your efforts and energy into the task and whatever happens, happens. With anything, there’s an area which is under your control and an area which isn’t. When you’re committed, you’ve put 100% of what’s under you control 100% into achieving your desired aim.
Oftentimes we can be completely attached to an outcome without being committed at all. This is when we start to suffer and begin to wish other people or events would change so that we can get the result we want and need. This is the immature stance where we expect things just because we want them, much like a child who throws a fit because he mightn’t get a toy on his brother’s birthday.
Another way to view this paradigm is looking at things with indifference. Indifference is the antithesis to attachment. Though being indifferent to an outcome is hard, particularly if you spent 20, 30, or 40 years being attached to outcomes. You’ll notice that when you’re truly indifferent you are a lot more relaxed. The outcome won’t affect you negatively in any way (you’re still allowing the possibility of it enriching your life, but there’s no way you’ll be worse off without it), so you’ve freed up more of your resources to give to the task and being in the moment.
Indifference is not the same as apathy, mind. Being apathetic would almost be an attempt to sabotage your mission. When I say apathy, I mean you feel the outcome is not worth the effort, so you do a half hearted job, if even.
Surprisingly, being totally committed to something without becoming attached to it increases your probably of success in any area. Why is this? When we’re emotionally attached to something it makes it easier to start having fears and doubts. As with everything else, fear attracts fear. When you start to fear the loss of something in the future you begin to act differently.
Consider this: You’re meeting a girl for a first date. You’re feeling good and looking forward to getting to know her and see if you both click. You’re energised anyway and able to interact with anyone, free from the worries of how you’ll be perceived and whether she’d like you.
Or, you’re a complete bag of nerves. You fret about what she’ll think of you and how you’ll come across. You’re desperately trying not to come across as needy, clingy or desperate. You’d like to come across as confident but all you can think of is how you can’t. How do you think your actions will be affected because you’re trying not to come across as needy? How do you think the evening is going to go? It’s funny how being afraid of coming across as insecure will make you come across as insecure! But there’s the rub.
If commitment is being focused on the action, and attachment on the result, isn’t commitment a how?  When you’re 100% committed, you know the outcome you’d like or are striving for. But after that, you begin to focus on your actions and in particular what you’re responding to. With attachment, you’re so caught up in the goal that you can’t respond to the immediate environment. When you’re attached to something, it absolutely has to work out a specific way. Being overly specific makes it difficult for synchronicity to arise and for you to take other opportunities, since they’re only seen as not bringing you towards your target. What you do with attachment is make one task produce only specific result. This prevents other goals manifesting. For example, say you had the goals of a) becoming more successful in your career, b) getting a girlfriend, and c) losing some weight and taking up a new sport. Now what would happen if you met someone at a party? If you decide that they can only further one of your goals (say girlfriend) you could miss out on a good job they might have for you. Or they know someone who’s involved in free running and could arrange a meeting. By being attached to that outcome you can lose out on so much. And that’s just the measurable, outer world benefits. Who knows how anything could change your perspective on any number of things. A good affirmation which I heard that helps me keep this in mind, particularly when I don’t feel like someone is helping me toward my goals, is “Everything and everyone prospers me.â€
Commitment is focused on yourself, what is under your control. Attachment places your emotions outside of your control. This is particularly prevalent in any goal that involves another person. Say, for example, your goal was intimacy with someone special. You meet someone, and you appear to hit it off. Then, through whatever is going on in her life, she doesn’t return your calls. Her actions are not under your control, and they’re not part of your life. By continuing the attachment you’ve gotten focused on intimacy with her, which is blocking intimacy with someone else.
To take Susan Jeffers’ attitude: If you’re attached to something and worried about the consequences of not succeeding, what you are really saying is that you don’t know how to cope with the loss. If you’re unattached, no matter what happens, you’ll be able to handle it.
So what if you fail and you really, really tried? Well, if everything external to your boundary (area of influence) was in alignment, then it’s a reflection of your skill, not a reflection of you. I prefer the term skill to ability because we tend to objectify skills more than abilities, which we consider part of ourselves.
Detachment from your skills really helps you see the difference between commitment and attachment. Even the very best in the world mess up and make beginner mistakes. Does that mean that they themselves are worthless? Of course not.
The outcome to any event is always outside your control until after you’ve succeeded. One definition of growth or success is that something new comes under you’re control and you expand your personal boundary or limits. But, until you’ve achieved it, it remains external to you, and therefore outside of your control. So if you’re attached to something you are placing your emotions – something truly internal – at the mercy of something which is not part of you.
With commitment to an outcome, or more specifically committing your fullest resources and abilities to the process of attaining the outcome, you grow regardless, as you stressed yourself past your limits. Regardless of whether the final goal is achieved, you developed and grew. So you’re better than when you started.
The simplest way to stay focused on being committed rather than attached is to recognise first of all when you’re getting frustrated because something’s not happening. If the outcome is not materialising ask yourself “what do I want?†Think in terms of the end emotion, not the means. If you want to be happy, secure and confident, that’s your ‘what’. Commit to that. If you want something or someone to make you happy, secure and confident, that’s a ‘how’. And we know that what is up to you, how is up to the universe.
One Response to “Commitment to a Goal versus Attachment to an Outcome”
January 4th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
I totally agree with your outlook on goals and non-attachment. Being unattached to outcomes, but still striving to do your best is a good observational way to look at the situation. If you’re committed to a goal, and you become attached and leechy, you may end up getting committed. It’s all about getting better, being better. It’s not about a specific outcome, but being better for the experience. Thank you.