Commitments to yourself are the most important aspect of achieving success, and staying focused on those goals will help you avoid distractions. Learning how to avoid distractions will give a huge advantage over the rest of the field, and learning how to harness those distractions into positive energy will only enhance your skills in the long-run. Now, have you ever considered the ideal that you can achieve success much more rapidly if you commit to donating a portion of your salary to a charity each paycheck?

It is the sheer fact of staying committed to the donation that will force you to work harder, and the blatant fact that you are taking on the responsibility of your word. In life we are only as good as the people we help, and we are only as good as our word. Our word is our commitment, and it is something that we cannot afford to break.

Here are three reasons why I donate to charity each paycheck –

1. I believe in helping out as many people as possible

It is true that I am not able to allocate any more time from my schedule to help build house, work at a soup kitchen, or mentor the inner city youth. I thought to myself, what else can I do to help this process, for I want to be able to help as many people as possible. I committed to a goal of donating 1% of my gross salary to various charities across the country, and have allocated a portion of my paycheck each week to a different charity. This way, I am able to directly and indirectly affect many people, and will give them privileges that they currently are not able to obtain regularly.

2. I believe it makes me a better person

We are what we are today, because someone gave us something in our youth. It may have been time from our parents, it may have been a tool that we use everyday, such as a book, or it may be a hobby or tradition that we will pass on for generations to come. Giving is in our nature, and it is the ethical practice to leave. Making this practice will not only help round you as a person, for it will create a more positive attitude. If you are constantly trying to make yourself better, you will consistently try to give back, and will look for many other ways where you can become a better person. It is our duty, as people, to make others better, and to enhance ourselves so that we become great leaders. This is one step in that process.

3. I believe this is part of my legacy

Have you ever thought about your 200 year legacy? Have you thought about what you will leave behind, and what you want to be know for in life? A commitment to donating helps build the foundation for what you want to become, and what you want to leave behind. If you consider the person you want to be remembered for in years to come, consider this practice, and you will greatly affect hundreds of people. It all starts with one, and it builds from there.

John Rockefeller committed to donating a small percentage of his paycheck each week to charity or people in need, and he was so animate about this process that he had it down to the penny. Each week he would allocate a certain amount of funding to a charity or individual, and he would follow this process religiously. John Rockefeller went on to become one of the richest men in America, and he never finished high school.

This year I will donate 50 trees to the National Preservation Organization to help increase forests throughout the country, so more and more people can appreciate American forests. I have also committed to donating to the schools I attended, and I also donate to Goodwill and the United Cerebral Palsy foundation.

Even if you can only donate $1 a week to a charity, in time, you will learn that this practice will provide you will the gift of generosity, goodwill, and you will make great relationships along the way.