Casualty of commitment vs. Casualty of peace

Failures of an Abba

After 2 months of this Abba taking a hiatus, we’re coming back to you live from the corner of embarrassment and repentance.

At the start of 2025, I set a goal to bring this idea of Call Him Abba from the level of a cool concept that a couple of buddies and I tossed around over some fine pilsners to an actual blog or Substack—an avenue to share this idea of Abba-hood with men (and the wives forcing their SOs to read it).

At first, I committed to writing two articles a week. The first article was going to be more theoretical, living at the level of idea and pedagogy. That one was supposed to come out Tuesday or Wednesday. The second article, entitled “The HOA: Habits of an Abba,” was built to satisfy the pragmatic side of my brain that wanted to operate tactically and offer extremely practical thoughts (after all, this is for men).

That lasted for about two months.

I knew after about six weeks that was impossible. Between raising three miniature terrorists (I mean toddlers), working 40 to 50 hours a week, training for various fitness competitions, leading a Bible study for fellow Abbas, traveling 20 to 25 times a year for work, and trying to stay faithful to daily time with my Abba, the two-times-a-week cadence was unsustainable.

At the beginning of 2025, I hired my first life coach. We started off the first quarter meeting twice a month. During one of these conversations, I was complaining that I missed my article commitment. He asked, “Well, who do you think you’re letting down?”

Not the 100 to 150 people who skim my articles.

But myself.

So we recommitted to a once-a-week cadence. That felt reasonable and attainable, but still required a certain level of dedication.

I held that pace for another two months.

Then I relocated my family to Florida for just under six weeks to lead an intensive work training for 400 to 500 staff members starting out their careers. While the swimming, sun, and work were incredibly meaningful, I fell out of my writing rhythm.

Next thing you know, I looked down at my Substack and realized it had been two months since I put out an article.

When an Abba fails

Whether or not anyone has been in tears, therapy, or counseling because they haven’t received content from CHA, to me, this represents a failure.

I’ve used Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner for the last three years. At the beginning of each year, you spend three to four hours planning your annual goals. From those, you distill them into quarters, then into weeks. Within this framework, Hyatt’s mantra is: “To accomplish our goals, we must distill our dreams into daily actions.”

I created ten annual goals and built goal statements, why statements, and broke them into quarterly chunks. One of the gaps in my Abba-hood is that I often operate like cardboard in a fire. When I first get going, I burn hot. I’m never short on great ideas. At any given time, I’m percolating on a few different business ideas, fitness projects, ministry efforts, or house upgrades. I get things off the ground, but when they get difficult, I often abandon them. I lack tenacity. I burn bright at the beginning, but when the wind of a new idea comes, the fire goes out. It’s not so much a lack of perseverance as it is getting swept up in the next exciting thing.

That’s why Michael Hyatt’s framework challenges me—it forces me to commit to a finite number of goals and either accomplish them or not. Already this year, I’ve failed two of my annual goals:

• Run a sub 3:45 marathon

• Write a weekly newsletter for Call Him Abba (52 total)

The first goal I failed on May 4. I ran a 3:53 marathon at the Colorado Marathon in Ft. Collins. I was on pace for sub 3:45 through mile 19, then hit the wall. Like cardboard in the fire.

We’ve already discussed the failure of the second one.

These two stung more because they were both public. I posted on Strava announcing my sub 3:45 goal. And the lack of published newsletter? That was public here.

Looking Back and Looking Forward

What happens when you fail?

You look back, and then you look forward.

Looking back at the marathon, it is clear why I fell apart. Not enough weekly mileage and not enough time spent running 18 miles or more. My legs just shut down at mile 18. I could not hold the 8:30 pace. Cardiovascular fitness was fine—my heart rate never got above 160 before mile 16. But the legs just were not strong enough to hold that pace over that distance. Makes sense—I averaged only 32 miles a week in training and did just one 18-mile and one 20-mile long run. That is not enough volume to sustain that pace for 26.2 miles.

Looking ahead, if I want to run in the 3:30s (next goal), and eventually work down toward the low 3s (two years out), my legs are going to need more miles. Simple as that.

Looking back at the Call Him Abba newsletter failure, the shortcoming is also clear: a lack of scheduling. When I commit to something but do not set aside a weekly rhythm or dedicated time to do it, it does not happen. I am successful when I intentionally carve out time—every Thursday morning, for example, or every plane ride home from a trip—as a dedicated writing block.

The “fitting in” technique—trying to squeeze it in around everything else—always results in one of two things: a casualty of commitment or a casualty of peace.

A casualty of commitment means I drop the commitment entirely. A casualty of peace means I keep the commitment but lose my sense of calm. I spend the day anxiously waiting for the right moment to get it done, distracted from being present to the task at hand. Sure, it gets done, but I am not in a relationship with myself that is defined by peace, freedom, or calm.

When peace becomes the casualty, it usually brings resentment with it, resentment toward the people and responsibilities that “got in the way” of the goal. My wife, my kids, work, dishes, laundry, anything can become a target when I treat them as obstacles instead of gifts.

As an Abba, do you struggle more with the casualty of commitment or the casualty of peace?

Do you let commitments quietly fade, unshaken by the lack of integrity in yourself?

Or do you barrel through every commitment no matter the impact on those around you?

Are you quick to finish the task, check the box, meet the goal—without pausing to consider how it might affect the people who rely on you?

Part of Abba-hood is constant failure. Daily dropping of responsibilities, setting a goal and totally missing it, failing to bear the load of responsibility adequately. This is the beauty of the community of Abba’s. A group of men that desire to fail, because that means they are moving towards a life of risk taking.

CHA,

Chasing What Matters,

John Michael Lucido