Do You Have the Simple Dedication to Succeed?

September 19, 2007

As I’ve mentioned before, I work part-time at a Vitamin Shoppe store as a way of learning as much as I can about fitness and nutrition. I love talking to the customers and finding out what has worked for them, helping them locate products that will fulfill their current needs and trying supplements out for myself. All of these are great perks of my job, but the best perk of all is probably getting to bond with the other associates and managers. A few days ago it was the assistant manager, George, who said something I found very thought provoking. We were talking about George’s current projects and plans and he said that after we closed down the store that night he was going to go home and work until 3am on something else. I was a little shocked by the statement as George had been feeling sick that day. When I asked him why he didn’t just rest he simply shrugged his shoulders and said that he was only going to get out of his project what he put into it.

It’s incredible sometimes how you can experience an old pearl of wisdom in a new way. We’ve all heard ?you reap what you sow,? but has it ever truly resonated with you? It hadn’t with me. I don’t know why, but until the moment that George simply shrugged away the thought of rest, I don’t think I ever truly understood it. Since then that thought has turned itself over in my head. I’ve marveled at George’s simple dedication. It isn’t a new, or innovative thought and yet it’s as if I had never heard anything so brilliant in my life.

Practice and Preaching

I know some of you may be rolling your eyes and thinking, ?No kidding, Roach, where have you been. Of course you reap what you sow!? But hang on a second. Do you really understand this proverb and, if you do, do you put it into practice everyday of your life? Most of you probably answered the first part of that question quickly, but were a bit more hesitant when it came to part two. Sure, we all understand the farming metaphor for getting out of life what you put into it; that isn’t the hard part. The hard part is turning that metaphor into a way of life.

If you had a hard time answering whether or not you put this idea into practice everyday, let me ask it another way. Let’s say you lay down late one night, later than you would normally go to bed, knowing that in a few hours you’ll have to wake up and go to work. Just as you close you eyes and get nice and relaxed you suddenly remember that you forgot to finish something you meant to have done. It isn’t vital, but you wanted to have it done by morning. Would you get up and finish, or would you go back to bed and promise yourself you’ll do it tomorrow as soon as you can get around to it?

If the answer was go back to bed, then you aren’t sowing very much. I ask this question because I ran into just this problem the night that George and I had our conversation. I had gone to bed around 3am and had to be at work the next morning, when suddenly I remembered that I had meant to edit and post two articles for this blog. I lay there for a minute or so debating with myself as to whether or not I wanted to sleep or edit. In the end I got out of bed, posted both articles and felt very proud of myself. All along the way I had to keep telling myself that I would reap what I sow and convince myself not to head back to bed, but in the end it all worked out and I walked away with a lot of pride in my decision. This story isn’t meant to brag, by the way, because like most people I too find it hard to follow this proverb daily. But it was after this one night that I developed the model for discovering if what you are doing in your life is really what you want to do.

The Secret of Desire

There is one key to doing anything in the world and doing it well. That key is desire. If you don’t want to do something, you won’t do it very well. You’re heart won’t be in it and that kind of shoddy work is always obvious. The people who are truly successful in life got that way because they enjoyed their jobs. Every personal development writer and life coach will tell you that the key to getting what you want is to cultivate a ?burning desire.?

That’s where my model comes into play. When you are trying to decide if a new career or project is the right one for you, ask yourself this question:

Would I be willing to get out of bed for it?

If the answer is no, then put it one the back burning and find something you can answer yes to. If you aren’t willing to get up and finish something you started at the loss of a little sleep, then your burning desire just isn’t there. Some folks may tell you that you can create a burning desire, but I’m not convinced that’s true. In my experience you either want it so badly you can taste it, or you don’t. Now that’s not to say that your burning desire for a certain goal might not appear sometime down the road when circumstances change a bit, but creating desire is a tricky business. Desire is an emotion just like any other and to create an emotion is generally akin to faking an emotion, which serves no earthly purpose I can see. Crocodile tears will always be crocodile tears, not matter how hard you work at them. By the same token, false desire will always be false desire.

Trying to convince yourself to persevere is an admirable thing to do. Humans admire perseverance because it signifies a courage and a sense of fun that most of us lack. It’s okay to occasionally have a day where you must approach your goals with more self-discipline than desire. Some days you may wake up and decide that you would rather just lay around outside and pick flowers. That’s okay, it isn’t necessary that your simple dedication should turn into an obsession. It’s all right to have to force yourself occasionally to work when you don’t feel like it. We all have days like that. I would urge you to take a strong look at your current goals and projects and see just how many days out of the week you work towards your goals because you genuinely want to and how many days you force yourself to. If you force it more than two or three days every week, you might want to rethink your goals and try to discover something you truly would get out of bed for.

Simple Dedication

I’ve begun to wonder since that night at the store if perhaps the key to success in any endeavor might not be much simpler than we think. Perhaps it isn’t relentless productivity or ?getting things done.? Those certainly must play a role, but what if the key is the simple dedication it takes to get out of bed in the morning? What if the same dedication that drives us to forgo just a few more minutes of sleep to read the next chapter of our nightly fiction is the same dedication that can drive us to complete the goals that we desire?

This simple dedication isn’t the same as pushing through discomfort, or Wayne Dyer’s ?Pit Bull Determination.? This is different. That type of guts and glory determination is certainly necessary, but it focuses more on the future in the hopes of ignoring the unpleasant present. Simple determination isn’t as strict, it doesn’t involve a ?have to.? It is almost child-like in it’s constant movement forward. Simple determination doesn’t push through pain, it just doesn’t notice the pain is there. Put more simply, it’s the difference between doing something because you ?have to? and doing something because you ?want to.? It was the realization that George wouldn’t have been able to rest without having done this work that struck me. At that moment he felt sick, but he seemed to know that once he began working on this current goal all of that would disappear. He even seemed to know that this might make him feel worse the next day, but that was a price to be paid.

George had that simple dedication. He moved forward not because he felt he must, but because he didn’t seem to be able to stop himself. George was determined to get out exactly what he put in and I admired that.

Simple Dedication and Fear

The reason most of have never experienced this feeling of simple dedication is because it isn’t based in fear. Simple dedication is based in faith and joy; it is moving forward out of desire. The idea of pushing yourself to become motivated comes from the fear of an unwanted result. We push ourselves to move forward because we fear moving backward. If you aren’t willing to get out of bed at 3am to work on your goal, the reason is partially due to your lack of real desire and partially due to your fear of failure. Most of us work toward our goals from a stand point of ?Gee, I hope I don’t fail,? and as I said in How to Cultivate a Mindset for Success this kind of thinking can never prevail. You must assume that you cannot fail because to assume the opposite is to create the possibility.

This is the reason I call simple dedication child-like, because children move toward their desire without the knowledge that they might not get what they want. They play without the fear of playing incorrectly. Children have made their own rules about their success and have little to no idea what failure is. Because failure has not been defined, by experience or by adults, children work and play effortlessly. They create simply for the joy of creating, unaware that the outcome can be anything but what they wish it to be.

I don’t like children, but that’s admirable and I wish I could be more like that.

I can’t tell you how to create this mindset that I’ve labeled Simple Dedication, not at this point in time at least, because I don’t believe it can be created. It seems that any attempt at creating something so natural would simply be putting on airs. You either have it, or you don’t. If you’ve created goals that excite you and for which you have a real desire, you have it. If you work because you enjoy the work, you have it. If you’d get out of bed to finish what you started, you have it. If you do not possess this simple dedication don’t feel inadequate, because it isn’t something lacking in you, but something lacking in your goals. There isn’t anything wrong with you that needs fixing, you’ve simply underestimated yourself and chosen goals that were beneath you.

In this case, I think Wallace Wattles said it best: “When you make a failure it is because you have not asked for enough. Keep on, and a larger thing than you were seeking will certainly come to you.”

Learn to ask for something more and not to restrict yourself only to what you think you should have. Assume that you can have anything you want and then work toward that. There is no rule that says you cannot succeed. Begin to approach your goals more like a child, for the simple joy of the goal itself. Put aside what it will bring you. Nine times out of ten, your joy in your work will inspire joy in others and at that point you will know you have made something that will be successful. Work out of simple dedication to the craft. Out of a simple dedication to yourself.

Posted in Determination, Fear, Goal Setting, Motivation, Providing Value, Success, The Mind