Dedication or Meditation?

When I hear the word “dedication” I am taken back to the days of Roy Castle singing away and blowing his trumpet. We can’t achieve any records or success without dedication, perseverance and commitment. Look at any of the Olympic athletes from across the globe; whether they win or not, they all put in incredible amounts of dedication and training to get to the top of their field.

I recently attended a concert given by Brian May- the lead guitarist from the band Queen – accompanied by the singer Kerry Ellis. An acoustic evening, where my daughter and I sat no more than ten metres away from this rock legend who demonstrated his extraordinary playing skills on various guitars for our delight and enjoyment. The man has an obscene amount of talent, and I do mean that in a complimentary way, the event was simply incredible. Without question this is a man who has been dedicated to his given skill and talent for what is probably in excess of 50 years now.

Many of us ‘cop’ out early in the dedication stakes; it’s all getting a bit hard or complicated, or things aren’t quite coming together as we were hoping so we’ll try something else – which is the same as quitting but just said in a more palatable way. It is all too easy to walk away when things get tough or choose another toy, gimmick or distraction. The dedicated ones persevere.

This is the stage where I believe we need some kind of release because there are many occasions when perseverance and doggedly sticking to the same course is actually detrimental to the survival of the project, you could be flogging a dead horse. Most of us are challenged by the consultants’ advice to take time away from what we are doing and take an external view of what is going on. Yes, the helicopter view (thanks for that Roger Harrop).

Yet, how can we possibly take time out or away when there is so much noise going on? Nobody understands the business as well as I do, how will it cope in my absence?  Does this sound familiar?

So, how can we switch off that noise and clear our heads? Nowadays, everything seems to require an immediate response and switching off completely, even for a short time, can be a real issue.

I have for many years known of, and accepted, that meditation could help me but have avoided it as I considered it a bit ‘flaky’. No disrespect to those that practice it but it has simply not been on my radar. Trying to ignore the head chatter hasn’t worked so I have now started to investigate meditation.

I was recently introduced to a meditation app which gives me guided or unguided meditation sessions of varying times. My initial fear was that every time I sat with my eyes shut for a period of time I would fall asleep but I have to say that in the 10 or so times I’ve used the app I have yet to nod off. Has it had any affect, I hear you ask? Well I can honestly say that after even just 5 minutes of meditation I feel fresher and more alert, so that bodes well.

The message here is the need for balance between dedication and taking time to relax and reflect. Meditation could be an ideal way to help you “switch off the noise”. I am personally enjoying this period of investigation and will see where it leads me.