Doing the Hard Work!

Quote:

“Effort and hard work construct the bridge

that connects your dreams to reality.”

~Daisaku Ikeda

Scripture:

The soul of the lazy person craves and gets nothing, but the soul of the diligent is rich and abundantly supplied.

~Proverbs 13:4

Perspective:

Effort is the hard work and meaningful time invested in any area in which we want to improve and succeed.  It is active, not passive, time spent; we can participate in something, meaning we are present, maybe even every single time we should be, or we can invest time in something, doing the hard work and using our mind to get all we can from it.  Neither coasting nor constant struggle will take us to success.  We must stretch our self out of our comfort zone but learn and grow at a pace that continues to challenge us without causing us to spend all our time struggling.

There is no skill that cannot be mastered with determined effort, for that is how we learn and grow in any area of life.  Learning is not just meant for school but is a way of life if we are to succeed in whatever way we define that.  Our natural, or innate intelligence and talent only make up 25% of what we are capable of, the other 75% comes from the effort we are willing to put into what we want to achieve.  If you look at successful people throughout history, whether they are explorers, inventors, business owners, scientists, sports figures, entertainers, or anyone else, they all put in the hard work and had to fail more than once to succeed.  As outsiders looking in, we don’t see the consistent effort that was exerted to get where they got and so we can falsely believe they are/were lucky  or it came naturally  to them.  We can further incorrectly assume we do not have what it takes because we are not easily and quickly successful.

“Nobody is a natural; you work hard to

get good and then you work to get better.”

~Paul Coffey

Having a dream is a great place to start but you must put in the hard work to achieve your goals; you have to DO all the steps necessary to achieve any goal.  You must do what you need to, not what you want to; some of the hard work is not fun, in fact it is even dreadful.  To accomplish those dreadful steps, you must keep your eye on your goal.  If your goal(s) means enough to you, then the unpleasant steps must be viewed as necessary steppingstones, a means to an end!  Chances are high, that if we focus on doing what is comfortable and fun, we will not reach our goals in the different life areas.  My younger years are a good example of that. 

Looking back at my twenties, it is easy for others to just see the facts, that I went to college and later to graduate school, and so believe that I was successful.  I even worked as a server 4-5 nights a week through my degrees because I was financially independent.  I did work hard but all my efforts were not meaningful.  I know how much time I wasted doing things that seemed like fun then but were simply a waste of time in reaching my goals.  I was the only person in my family, headed by two immigrant parents, to complete college.  I always wanted to go into the medical field (becoming a doctor was my first choice) but due to my undiagnosed ADHD, I struggled with higher math and chemistry and was very quick to quit both, and no one at home was pushing me to keep trying, to get help, to believe in myself.   I actually quit chemistry after my first college class, something I am not proud of.  Today, my perspective has changed, I have a Growth Mindset.  I know I can do anything I put my mind to, with the right effort, lots of practice, through learning new strategies, and seeking help when it is needed, by seeing my mistakes as rich learning opportunities.  I could have given up completely, viewed myself as incapable and hopeless, and been angry at my parents for not giving me the support that would have helped me reach my initial goals, but I chose not to. 

Despite all my struggles, I was determined to succeed, to reach my revised goals, and there were many revisions throughout the years, but I never gave up.  God works all things for our good!  If we are doing all we can and believing in our goals and our self, God is working even when we cannot see or feel Him doing so.  We must be determined in our efforts to turn our dreams into goals with steps, and then into reality.  True faith is believing even when it doesn’t make sense and we can’t find the answers.  It is during this type of faith, the most difficult kind to have, that we will have the most growth.  

Life Application:

Contemplate and assess your pattern(s) of effort throughout your life.  Do you have great ideas and aspirations that then fizzle out when things feel too hard?  Do you loose interest quickly and move on to something new repeatedly?  Has this caused unnecessary job changes?  Or, relationships that ended too quickly?  Or do you tend to do the opposite, do you stick with things far too long, when it is obvious to everyone around you that it will not work?  Do you push through the challenges and plateaus that will always arise in life?  Do you seek to learn and grow in all you do, as if you are hungry to do so?

Have your patterns helped or hindered your success in all areas of your life?  If they have hindered you, then NOW is the time to make changes, to push through and learn from the inevitable hard things in life!

If you struggle to assess yourself and identify your problem areas first and foremost, pray to God for His guidance and strength; go to Him before anyone else!  Then reach out to trusted loved ones who know you well for their perspective.  We do not always see our self the way those around us do; if you hear the same thing over and over it is probably worth taking into consideration!

If you have some extra time right now, while we are all on quarantine, I suggest you listen to or read an autobiography from someone successful who struggled and put in the hard work to get where they are today.

**Next week I will discuss grit, or the stamina we need to persevere with passion.