I’ve been learning bits and pieces of the Chinese language.

I love to learn new things and learning a new language is a lot of fun.

The difficult thing about learning a language is not so much learning the words, but finding someone with whom one can practice. Even if one took the time and money to take a course or two in a community college, if one doesn’t have anyone with whom to speak it, then … Well, we all know how the things we learn get rusty when we don’t use them.

I’ve learned quite a bit, but to this day I am only able to speak the bare basics.

Why is that?

Here’s the answer in a nutshell: I should know more than I know now, but I haven’t made the commitment to sit down every night and study the language.

And that, my friend, is the key to every success, from learning a new language to building an empire.

Commitment.

For every thing in life, the main thing you have to do in order to succeed is to make the commitment to do something. You have to say, “If I am going to do this, then this is what I need to do.”

Once that die is cast, then you must follow through and do what must be done.

Charles F. Haanel wrote the same thing in Week Four of The Master Key System.

If you do not intend to do a thing, do not start. If you do start, see it through even if the heavens fall; if you make up your mind to do something, do it; let nothing, no one interfere; the “I” in you has determined, the thing is settled; the die is cast, there is no longer any argument.

That is what commitment is.

It is the defining line between success and failure.

Commit yourself to something.

Then follow through.

Start small. Build up to the big things.

Because the big things are made-up of little things.

And they work together in one amazing whole.

—

Commit to reading at least one great book per week because that’s what successful people do.