As part of our farm family, the kids all had chores to do.

One of those chores was to help me weed the garden — one of my daughter’s least favorite things. I think she would have preferred to eat dirt rather than pull weeds! She often tried to get out of it by taking much longer than necessary to get her row done. She figured if she took too long, I would get impatient and do it for her.

It worked a few times. But once I figured out what she was doing, I decided to teach her an important lesson in always doing your best. I’d say, “You seem to really like spending time in the garden, so I’m going to let you weed while I go do…”

It worked!

From then on, she went to work full of energy and determination. We even had contests to see whose rows would look the neatest. And today, her garden always looks well-kept and weed-free.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s pulling weeds, writing a book, painting the living room walls, creating a business, or working to make any of our dreams a reality, anything we feel is worth our time is also worth our best effort.