Pledge Of Professionalism (PoP)

The Pledge of Professionalism is an idea inspired by a blog post by Seth Godin.

It’s a commitement you make to yourself that will maximise the chance of you succeeding in your goals. Come back and read it as often as you need to.

I understand that I don’t have to wait until I am professional to behave professionally. Therefore I will do what a professional would do and so:

I hereby pledge to take responsibility for my future. I will take my business seriously; it may be part-time and my financial security may not depend on it right now but I will act as if it does. Whatever my ambitions, I will treat this as a business, not a hobby.

I will have a written plan, goals and a mission statement. I will set myself short and long-term objectives and I’ll revise my day-to-day activities to do my best to keep to that plan. I’ll adapt my plan as I grow – it doesn’t have to be perfect day one.

I will invest in myself (though learning) and my business (through at least some financial investment) and not make excuses for not being able to do so. I will not expect to take something out of a business that I put nothing in to.

I commit to investing ___ hours a week into action on my business and ___ hours a week into learning.

Also:

At any point in time I will take action, doing my best given my knowledge and skills at that time. I will seek to continuously improve my chances by adding to my knowledge and skills rather than relying on chance and foolishly expecting success to happen by itself.

I accept that some things may be difficult for me to master, may require concentration and dedication and a willingness to study and practice but master them I must; because without those skills, I significantly reduce my chance of success.

I take responsibility for my own results, I will seek advice from others but responsibility still rests with me, not them.

I will behave, not as if I’m alone and no-one can see me but as if I’m acting in front of my peers; therefore I will do things properly and responsibly and with integrity.

If something doesn’t work the way I hoped, I will analyse what went wrong and take responsibility rather than blame outside influences or other people.

I am free to choose my strategy for financial freedom but I accept that if I refuse to even try to master certain key, fundamental skills I will have no-one to blame but myself if I never achieve my goals.

And finally:

I will resist the temptation to keep changing strategy in pursuit of an easier one. I will put the necessary work and learning in to fully commit to something and give it a fair try before I decide it’s not for me. I will not deviate from my current path, however tough it seems, just because I see something that promises to be less work or more exciting. I will NOT expect success to come easy or to be handed to me on a plate.

I understand that success is almost certain if I continue to take action and continuously seek to improve; failure is equally likely if I do only those tasks that are in my comfort zone and refuse to even try to do those that aren’t. I know that things that are currently outside my comfort zone will soon be within if I just learn and practice. My comfort zone will expand as I progress.

I have absolute confidence that if I do the right things and do them enough, I will succeed. I have no excuse for not doing at least that.

When appropriate I will help others as others have helped me.