Dedication

Making the most out of our lives and our situations requires us to be dedicated. It was during the more humbling parts of my life where I began to understand the importance of dedication.

When I first decided that I wanted to be a writer, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought I was fairly good at writing but when I began to read other blogs and more articles, I realized just how far down the ladder I was compared to others. My goodness, how will I ever be taken seriously? I quickly realized that even though I did not want to give up, I knew I had to dedicate myself to improvement and developing better writing skills. It's been a few years now and I still find myself unsatisfied at times but, I just keep typing away. I keep reading. I'm done with writing my book; I am in the process of rewriting some things and putting it all together; it's all very new to me but, I refuse to give up.


I have written hundreds of articles; I've made money doing so. It's nothing to get too excited about but it's exciting for me. I feel as though I started from nothing and I can finally see myself making real improvements. It's all about dedication.

When I had to take on a part time job, it was less than desirable but, I needed something quick in order to cover my bills. It was a humbling experience but for the first time in my life, I finally understood the value in dedication. It doesn't matter what job we are doing; it matters how we do that job. When I was younger and clueless, I did what I had to do (the minimum), and did not care much about the quality of my work. I was more interested in things that did not matter. This only hurt me in the long run. I was focused on all the wrong things. I did not realize the importance of committing myself to jobs because I looked down at them; I viewed those jobs as temporary and somehow believed I was "above" them. This type of thinking proved to be unproductive in retrospect.

Whatever it is we are doing, we should appreciate our opportunities and take full advantage of them. If you are a janitor (which I have been), learn your job and do it well. If you're working in fast food, get to know all the details of the business, absorb all the information you can and dedicate yourself to helping other. By doing this, we can make the most of our jobs. Otherwise, we just end up complaining and being miserable, wasting our time and everyone else's around us.

If you happen to find yourself in a rut where you're not enjoying what it is you're doing, learn to enjoy it and learn to make the best of it. This will benefit you in the long run and you may even be lucky enough to meet someone who can help you obtain a new job, a better job, a job where you will enjoy even more. Maybe you have a dream to own your own business. Go for it and do it with love in your heart. Dedicate yourself to constantly improving your skills. Learn everything you can about everything that concerns your work. Put your heart and soul into your work in order to deliver the best quality to others.

Dedication is something that works in personal relationships as well. If you decide to be with someone, dedicate yourself to them. Learn about them and who they are, how they react to things, how to better get along with them, and appreciate them. Dedicate yourself to being a good parent, a daughter, a son, a friend.

When we dedicate ourselves to what we are doing, we improve ourselves and all that is around us. We can learn to enjoy ourselves and what we are doing. Another benefit is that many of the skills we learn will become valuable later on in life. They can help us along the way and may even help us connect with new people that come into our lives.

Now that we know the benefits of dedication, it's up to us to learn how to do this. For many of us, life might be difficult and it's hard to dedicate ourselves to things that we view as challenging. For one, we have to understand that the things we dedicate ourselves to should be anything that is necessary: our relationships with our family, our jobs, and our passions. Obviously we should do our best to avoid dedicating ourselves to those people or things that are toxic or will have a negative impact on our lives; we must have self-interest and we can only do this by being honest with ourselves.

One way to begin your quest in dedication is to slow down. Slow your mind; think about what it is you are doing and learn the correct way of doing it. Say you have a job that requires repeated tasks to be done. Sure you need to complete things quickly but this can only be truly achieved if you are doing the task accurately. There's no point in finishing 100 tasks if half of them will have to be redone. It's better to get 75 completed with quality. I find that when I slow down just a bit, I often will finish first because I do not have to go back and repeat a step. Working too fast can create carelessness. By starting out slow and completing things with accuracy we can then move onto focusing on speed.

Make a list of what you need to do. Writing down your tasks will keep your mind and attention in order. If you want to start a business, you will need to learn about that type of business. This may take some time and will require daily research on your part so write down a plan for how much time you will dedicate each day to learning. Don't get frustrated if you miss a day or something doesn't work out the way you plan; move on and pick up where you left off the next day. Learn from setbacks, and carry on, don't wallow in them or allow them to bring you down. Life happens. Again, make the most of it.

Dedicating yourself to what you want and what you are doing will also make you a more pleasant person. Why? It's because you're giving yourself motivation and a purpose and we all want to feel as though we have a purpose. Without dedication, we drift through life being an endless victim of circumstances we do not even realize we are bringing into our lives.