The chicken was involved, the pig was committed.

There’s a pithy one liner about commitment and how it is different from involvement: The chicken was involved in creating your breakfast; the pig was committed. Which raises a question…

Are you committed to your goals? Or just involved with them?

You’ll know by how you respond when you’re tested. I was tested today. I have been involved in a number of goals lately, and today I had one of those days that forced me to commit. My day today started about five days ago, on Friday, when most of the stuff I needed for today’s conference arrived: 3,000 advance copies of my book were delivered to my house; my trade show materials showed up at the office; my t-shirt giveaways were ready for pick up on the north side. Only my informational cards, which wound up arriving on Monday, weren’t ready. Between Friday and today, I finished prepping for the conference; I worked with a team of concerned parents on some heady, high-impact school district stuff, I knocked out a bunch of schoolwork, and I responded to 300+ emails. Today, with a ton of work behind me and everything conference-related in hand, I loaded a car and a half (after having one of my team meet me at my house at an ungodly hour) and directed my team to the Donald E. Stevens Convention Center in Rosemont. There, we set up a satellite office for the day and introduced the world to How to Self-Destruct: Making the Least of What’s Left of Your Career.

Our “fail spectacularly” shirts were a big hit. The book spawned a good deal of interest and early endorsements from a handful of the people who bought a copy. THANK YOU! Our booth graphics stopped people in their tracks and our informational cards got compliments. My team performed extremely well: Vicky, Keri, Pooja, and Kevin, I can’t thank you enough.

After quickly breaking down our booth at 4:30pm, I was off to school, where the subject today was conflict management. I love this topic, because it’s one of those subjects in which the academic models are so perfect and yet, at the same time, so woefully inadequate given the ambiguities of real life. It makes for wonderful discussion. I taught until 9pm, and then I left for the hospital to visit my dad, who had gone in for some pretty major surgery today.

And there it was, the test. At 1 pm, while I laughed at the conference and hawked books, my dad went under the knife in a surgery that was just scheduled last Tuesday. (You can fill in the blanks as to why he was there, but suffice it to say, he’s doing great. If it weren’t for the hospital bed around him, you’d never know he was inside out this afternoon.)

Anticipating a parent going through surgery can be… a bit… distracting. Involvement doesn’t get you past it. Involvement gets you through most of your day, and leaves you staring at the ceiling at night, battling the What If… demons. You have to be committed to get through a day without losing your focus. You have to be willing to live your life so fully that you crowd out every other thing that might be pounding at your temples for your attention. Since last Friday, I have tried to be committed.

Have I been committed every minute since then? No. But last weekend I needed to get my work done, and I did. I needed to spend quality time with my daughters, and I did. Last night I needed sleep, and I got it. Then today I needed to be on, and I was.

I was planning on today being a strategic test: would the brand generate interest? Would the book sell? Would people be interested in the pitch? Would our materials be well received? Turns out, the test was something much bigger than strategy: the test was me. Could I stay focused under pressure?

Knowing what you want and how you you think you can achieve it is having strategic vision. That’s helpful, necessary even, but insufficient for success. You can have a vision without commitment; that’s called a dream. Not even involvement is enough to make dreams come true… you have to be committed.

You have to be willing to do whatever it takes. You have to be willing to commit of your soul to your task. You have to be willing to give up a piece of you, because only then can your idea flourish; only then does it acquire a life of its own. But beware: your focus will not be appreciated by everyone. Those who currently command your attention may not like your newfound resolve. People who need you may feel left out. Folks who don’t understand your sacrifice may even call you… for lack of a more insightful alternative… a pig. (I am fortunate that this wasn’t a concern for me this week; if anything, I think my dad was worried that I wouldn’t be able to hold my focus–he was probably as concerned that I’d take my eye off the ball at work as I was about his health. As it turns out, neither of us need have worried about the other.)

When you get tested, you’ll know. The question is, will you have what it takes? Will you risk being called a name or two to get what you want? Or will you be chicken?

Jason Seiden is Co-founder and CEO of Ajax Social Media, a training company that shows professionals how use social media to work more effectively.