Meaning of OUT OF MY WAY - A Really Short English Lesson with Subtitles

So the other day, it was my daughter's birthday,

and I went out of my way to make sure

that she had a really nice day on her birthday.

When you go out of your way,

or in the past tense when you say, "I went out of my way.",

it means that you do extra, that you do more,

that you just make sure that you do everything you can

to make sure that something goes well.

So it's good to go out of your way to help people,

when you go out of your way, it shows that you care,

it shows that you are giving some attention to detail,

and it shows that you want to make sure that things go well.

So the other day, my daughter had a birthday,

and I made sure that I went out of my way

to make sure it happened, or that it went really well.

Sorry, I'm messing up my own English here.

So, hopefully you go out of your way

for people all the time.

We have another phrase,

but it has a bit of a negative connotation.

I could say, "I bent over backwards.",

so that would mean I bend way over backwards

to get something done, if I said it literally.

But what it really means is that,

similar to going out of your way,

it means that you do everything you can

to get something done well, but sometimes this one

has a bit of a negative connotation to it.

Like, ah my boss is so mean that I'm constantly

bending over backwards to get things done for him.

Or, the other day I bent over backwards

to get more work done at work.

So, sometimes, you could say that you go out of your way,

and sometimes you could say that you bend over backwards.

It's your choice, they mean kind of the same thing.