It’s 5:30 pm on Thursday.

In my last post, I told you that I post on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

I thought I was safe to tell you that because I have been blogging three times a week for nearly two years.

It’s a habit. It’s what I do.

I like habits, schedules, and predictability.

I get up at 5. Our family eats dinner each night at 6. I put my kids to bed at 7:30.

On Sundays, I go to church then cook a big dinner (lunch) for our family, including my father-in-law, who joins us each week.

I take out the recycling on Wednesdays.

I make homemade pizza on Fridays.

For a long time, until work derailed me, I did laundry on Monday and Thursdays.

I blog on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

Having a regular posting schedule has been important to me in blogging. Blogging is one of the things I do. On a schedule. Because schedules work for me.

Today, though, I woke up late. I had a full day of work commitments and an afternoon event with my girls.

AllΒ  day, though, I thought about my blog and the post I hadn’t had time to write.

This one.

The danger of making a public commitment to blogging β€” to anything β€” is that when we state commitments, we create expectations.

We create expectations in others and we create expectations for ourselves.

If I commit to do something, you expect me to follow through. If I don’t follow through, you are disappointed.

If I commit to do something, I expect to follow through. If I don’t, I am doing more than letting you down. I am disappointing myself, as well.

Because I am a leader who wants to make a difference, I need to do more than make public commitments, I need to follow through on those commitments.

Every time, even when it’s inconvenient.

Even when I might prefer to prop up my feet and read a novel.

Today, it’s blogging.

Tomorrow, I may be tempted to slack on some other, more weighty, commitment. When tempted, I want to make the right choice.

I will stick to smaller commitments so that being true to my word is what I do: a habit, a routine, what people expect.

The danger of making a public commitment is that someone will be watching, listening, and expecting.

The danger of making a public commitment is that you will hear your words as a reminder of what you said you’d do.

The danger of making a public commitment is that you might actually have to follow through.

Tell me something! What public commitments have you made? How has making a public commitment to something helped you to follow through?

P.S. Great comments on this post, both here and on my Facebook page. I appreciate how gracious you all are regarding expectations about posts here. I also appreciate people sharing about their public commitments. One of the biggest public commitments we make is to our marriages. Kudos to Jeff for his 30 year commitment, to Mike for 28. Our faith commitments are also central — Deb, thanks for sharing about yours here.

I hope you will all check out this post from Paul Marshall. Make sure you read the comments. It’s an excellent, creative, and insightful take on this topic.