1 : an act or rite of dedicating to a divine being or to a sacred use
2 : a devoting or setting aside for a particular purpose
3 : a name and often a message prefixed to a literary, musical, or artistic production in tribute to a person or cause
4 : self-sacrificing devotion
5 : a ceremony to mark the official completion or opening of something (as a building)
WOW.
I'm an avid Colin Cowherd (ESPN Radio) listener and he said something that literally rocked my entire view of life the other day. (for real) To paraphrase him, "Dedication is the most overlooked trait of a champion. Dedication is not sexy, it's not highlight material, it's not even talked about, but I would take Dedication over talent and effort any day of the week."
I have a big poster I bought years ago hanging in my gym. It shows a woman running down a tree-lined path in autumn. A sole runner, going at it when everyone else has fallen off. On the bottom of the poster, it says, Commitment. Makes sense right - Commitment is what it takes. Commit to being great! Commit to being excellent!
1 a : an act of committing to a charge or trust: as (1) : a consignment to a penal or mental institution (2) : an act of referring a matter to a legislative committee b : mittimus
2 a : an agreement or pledge to do something in the future; especially : an engagement to assume a financial obligation at a future date b : something pledged c : the state or an instance of being obligated or emotionally impelled
I have "committed" so many things so many times in my life, I can't possibly count. It's so EASY to commit - you just decide that in the future (2a) you will follow through with your pledge. (2b) How many times have we committed to a New Years resolution - then sometime in February, caught ourselves chilling on the couch with a pepsi and bag of doritos (ummm.... yeah, that was me a few years back.)
Commitment doesn't mean ANYTHING without dedication.
Even Beachbody (my company who I deeply love and believe in) has the wrong idea for their slogan. "DECIDE, COMMIT, SUCCEED!" Well, sure. If you actually succeed - that's great. But, it seems to me that Deciding and Committing are often the same thing. Yes - to be sure, I understand the idea of committing is to actually follow through, but I also look around at the enormous amount of overfat people everywhere I look, and understand how well committing seems to work.
Let's look at the Webster definition of Dedication instead.
1 : an act or rite of dedicating to a divine being or to a sacred use
This is my favorite one right off the bat. Leaving out the implied God part of the definition, what could be more divine than our bodies. Our bodies are our first and possibly greatest gift, what more sacred use than working it to be the best it can. Don't fill your sacred divine being with ice cream, cookies, and soda - then let your divine belly rot on the couch! We HAVE to treat ourselves better than this!
2 : a devoting or setting aside for a particular purpose
Hell yes! What is your particular purpose? Wife? Father? Postman? Artist? Teacher? I'm a musician and trainer. If I'm not functioning well, my purpose will suffer. I used to have terrible back pain after gigs. For years, I thought it was due to being a trumpet player and how brutal the act of playing trumpet can be. Nope! It's because I was fat. I was out of shape and looking for excuses!
4 : self-sacrificing devotion
Self-Sacrificing. I thought a lot about this one. It doesn't seem to work really - I'm not self-sacrificing, I'm instead self-improving, self-empowering, self-perfecting. But then I thought about life in the past few days.
We were playing a 4th of July gig at a festival that had so much tasty food. Seriously, just the smell of it was driving me insane. A couple of the guys went and got some hotdogs and fries and I gotta be honest here, they looked amazing! However. I have decided and committed to getting my body (and mind and spirit) in the best shape I possibly can be. What stopped me from eating a funnel cake (which is what I really truly wanted anyway)? Was it my decision? NO! Was it my commitment? NO!
It was my dedication to keeping healthy that kept that off me.
I got home from my job at 10pm and hit the gym for my Thursday yoga. Was it my commitment that got me down there? NO! It was my dedication that walked down to my dark basement, instead of flipping on the tv and getting a ice tea. Tomorrow, when I get up early to workout before driving 3 hours one way, and 3 hours the other for a funeral, it will me my DEDICATION that will climb out of bed and press play, not my commitment.
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