What is diligence? How does it differ from faithfulness?
Faithfulness clings to a goal, cause or ideal. Diligence adds the power of perseverance. Together, they are a powerful combination to create success in your life. Diligence helps you stay focused. You are being diligent about something - giving your attention to something -- all the time. If you make wise decisions and continue with diligence, you will complete your goals and arrive at your destination, your destiny.
In the Bible story, Ruth dedicated her life to Naomi's welfare. She was diligent to do everything she could to make their life together successful. Her diligence led her to deal wisely with Boaz. The residents of Bethlehem, her adopted town, were impressed with her dedication to Naomi. When Boaz heard about her, he instructed his laborers to show her favor. Her diligence led the way to her prosperity.
Of course, WHAT you are diligent about has a great effect on your outcome. For a long time, I was diligent to play computer games... solitaire, Scrabble, word games. I spent hours focused diligently on the computer screen. But that diligence certainly was not contributing to my success!
Faith and diligence balance the spiritual and practical sides of your life. The life you are experiencing right now is the result of your decisions. Your victory will come from the decisions you make and the diligence you apply to manifest those decisions. Diligence means choosing what you give your attention to.
You are being diligent about something all the time. You can live a higher life. You can make quality decisions to apply the power of diligence toward your goals and dreams.
To experience progress and achieve the success you seek, you will have to go through some things with diligent effort. You will have to be diligent to give up what no longer blesses your life. When some of your activities and interests become a stumbling blocks to your progress, be diligent to 'just say no'. Remember that YOU chose your own schedule, commitments, and where you focus your attention.
So, what are YOU being diligent about? What needs your diligent effort? Use diligence like a tool to achieve success in every area of your life.
For more information on developing life skills, better relationships, and becoming the best YOU possible, visit http://www.seebecksolutions.com and sign up to receive your FREE subscription to "Solutions For Success", a weekly ezine of inspiration, motivation and humor.
Ruth Seebeck has built a reputation over the last three decades as a life-skills coach, mentor, Christian counselor and friend. She is a business owner, author, community volunteer and event coordinator whose passion is helping others overcome life's challenges.
Are You Diligent?
Are you diligent in your job? Relationships? School? How about life?
What does diligence mean to you? The definition of diligence in the New Webster Dictionary is the quality of being diligent. Diligent- hard-working, industrious.
So when you think about being diligent in your job or relationships you can ask yourself if you work hard in those things. Most people would say that they work hard in everything they do, therefore they are diligent. I disagree. Everyone can work hard. I work hard everyday just like everyone else, but some days I am not diligent. Lets use cutting the grass for example. If I were to go cut my yard with scissors it would take me hours or even days to complete the task, no matter how hard-working I was. But if I were to cut it with a lawnmower it wouldn't be near as hard or as long to complete.
Think of the word hard-working as smart-working. No one would cut their yard with scissors because they are smarter than that.
Are you hard-working or smart-working. You can go to work for 10 hours a day, but if you aren't using your time and efforts to the abilities you know your capable of then you are not diligent.
I have been working from home around 3 months now. The first month was rough. I have a separate office away from most the action in the house, but most the time I would still get distracted. I wasn't putting my mindset at work, it was still at home. Now that its been a couple of months my mind knows that when I step into that office, it is time to work and I can be diligent in my work.
The opposite of diligence is laziness. It is human nature to take the easy way out. We are naturally lazy and don't want to take on task that are difficult. It is our diligence that overcomes that laziness. I consume myself in books, dvds, and cds that help keep me diligent. I challenge you to look at your job, school, marriage, friendships, and life all together and see if you are being truly diligent, or if you are taking the easy way out.
