What Are You Committed to This Year? Leadership Coach Tara Mohr on Why This is the Question to Answer Right Now

The morning after the election, I looked at my phone, still in bed, and learned the results from a text thread with good friends. At first, I just pulled up the covers and let the feelings come: sadness, worry, fear. Things had not gone the way I’d hoped. 

Later that day, I sat down with a pen and paper. What flowed out onto the page was this:

Today I am more committed than ever to the things I believe in.

I am more committed than ever to revering and respecting our earth.

I am more committed than ever to seeing every person as precious, deserving of safety, love and opportunity.

I am more committed than ever to ending our collective delusion around who we see as leaders, and who we do not.

And I am more committed than ever to care and gentleness, to the wisdom and strength of the soft way. 

These commitments felt pressing, alive, and needed in new ways. That morning, I also learned something powerful, and I felt strengthened as I realized it: my commitment to these ideals has nothing to do with whether they are popular or not in any given time. They are woven into me far more deeply than that.

In the time since, other commitments have arisen for me. I began to think about them when a member of my work team and I spent a long, stormy November day in an airport, as our flight home from an event was delayed (and delayed again, and again). As we sat by our flight’s gate, she asked me, “What are you thinking about for 2025? What is your focus going to be?”

I noticed then that how we do our work in our small organization felt newly important. In a world becoming ever more divisive, our classes could continue to be a place where people from all backgrounds are held as important and loved. They could continue to be the kind of space where a Muslim woman and a Jewish woman can have a powerful coaching conversation and delight in getting to know one another, or a space where people on opposite sides of the political spectrum talk about matters of the heart and are reminded of what they have in common.

In a social landscape in which we’re likely to hear more mocking, name-calling and dehumanizing of others, my team and I could make sure that our business would continue to be a place where people would be met with the kindest words they’d likely encounter in a day, even in a simple customer email exchange. And in this AI-infused reality in which we are blurring the lines between what’s human and what’s machine, I wanted to lean hard into the human: to prioritize human faces seeing other human faces, human voices hearing human voices, humans creating and writing and speaking, and asking important, big questions about life, together. These are my newer commitments: keeping things human, being exquisitely kind, cherishing and including all – each one sparked by where we are going in this political and technological moment, and the counterforce I want to be.

How do we each discern what to commit to? We can’t do it all, but we can be faithful to what is calling us. For the past fifteen years, I’ve worked with people to help them discern and pursue their callings in life and work. My definition of callings is this: they are the assignments we each receive to bring love, goodness, or light into the world in some particular way.

Much of our mainstream culture would have us believe we each get one calling, with a capital C. But working with people, I’ve found that we get many callings over a lifetime, and sometimes even a few at once. Our callings may show up as the ideas or passion we feel to make a difference around a problem or need in the world, or the vision we hold for how something could be better. Sometimes they show up in a strong sense of clarity that we are meant to help a particular person – that neighbor going through chemo, or the nephew having a tough time, or the coworker new to the company who is overwhelmed. We all encounter myriad challenges and opportunities in the world, yet particular ones seem to call out to us and say, “This, this need, this problem, this positive possibility over here, your work is this.” That’s another way we can find direction and meaning in this time: we can ask ourselves, “What’s calling me now? What are my callings in this time?”

What I’ve shared above is my list of what’s calling me now and what I feel committed to. I’m interested in your list. Carve out some time and space to listen internally. Separate out other people’s shoulds (or your own shoulds!) from what is calling you with that genuine sense of pull, inspiration, concern, or “assignment.” There’s a sacredness to whatever the truth of that is. Take time with your journal and answer these questions solo, or meet up with a good friend to discuss together:

·  What am I more committed to than ever before?

·  What new commitments, if any, is this collective moment inspiring in me?

·  What needs or problems in the world are particularly calling out to me?

·  How might I begin to live out these commitments and callings in the year ahead?

Don’t expect yourself to have a full plan for this, and don’t wait to act until you have a full plan! Instead, brainstorm some simple, small steps that can help you begin. More will unfold as you get into action.

As we each head into the new calendar year, we can orient and find agency by articulating our answers to these questions. No one promised us that it would be easy to live out our most deeply held ideals. But this can be a time of clarifying them, embracing them, and most importantly, making our lives the creative space to live them out.

Tara Mohr is the author of the bestselling book, Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create and Lead. She is the creator and teacher of online courses for individuals who want to step into their unique playing bigger and help others do the same. Visit www.taramohr.com to learn more.