Why Hard Work Won’t Guarantee Your Success
Aim To Work Smart and Efficiently
Think about any book or video on success; 99.9% of the authors attribute hard work to its major component.
Since the age of 5, I’ve been surrounded by people who spoke similarly.
Not just me; I believe you also must have been used to hearing that hard work is the surefire way to achieve success.
No doubt, you need to work hard to succeed in any area of life.
However, what if I told you that not being hardworking isn’t holding you back, but being smart?
In my teenage years, while I was repeatedly told about the connection between success and hard work, I began to notice these patterns on my own.
I saw that in my community, the hardest-working people are most often not the most successful.
Smart work over hard work
Abraham Lincoln once said:
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I’ll spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
A lot of times, people who work smartly tend to be on the winning side.
Do you have to be born a genius to be smart? No!
Does it cost anything to be smart? Hell no!
“How then do I act smartly?”, you may be asking.
I got you!
A data analyst friend began his career two years ago. He had learned the basics of data analysis, and it was time to go hunting for opportunities to practice all he had learned.
He made lots of applications every day on LinkedIn, but all his efforts proved abortive.
He resolved to try other platforms like Upwork to see if things would turn out differently.
He just learned about Upwork, a platform for making job applications—although not a full-time job but freelancing.
For six months, he sent tons of proposals but got rejected in each case. He was fed up and felt there was no hope.
He made complaints to me, but I wasn’t in a position to be of help. I advised him to keep trying.
Later on, he thought of studying the mechanism of Upwork. He spent about a week trying to understand how the system worked.
After this time, he understood the proper times to send proposals, paid attention to the in-demand jobs, and was able to identify promising clients.
He went ahead and built a few projects based on the in-demand jobs and only sent proposals at the ideal times and to the right clients.
A week later, he received an invitation from a client to whom he hadn’t even submitted proposals.
What happened? He played smart, but he would have been smarter if he studied the mechanism first before sending his first proposal.
“In what way did he play smart?”, you may ask.
He took the time to understand how the entire system works. This is analogous to “sharpening the axe,” as Abraham Lincoln said in his quote.
Hard work doesn’t always equal effectiveness
Irrespective of how hard you work, if you don’t hit the nail on the head, you’ll never get it.
Imagine trying to cut down a tree with a knife. You’ll work so hard that your arms and your entire system suffer, but in reality, you’re almost not affecting the tree.
You may keep up with that for eternity and be an advocate for the phrase “hard work pays,” but in reality, you’re investing a lot of resources that will yield no fruit.
Be smart enough to know when your results are not commensurate with the efforts you put in.
Know when you’re making progress and when your efforts don’t even count.
For me, when I make adventures, I change strategies with time if I don’t get the desired results. I make a proper analysis and see what works best.
Yes, hard work pays, but it does when done right!
Conclusion
The belief that hard work alone guarantees success is a notion that needs reevaluation.
While diligence and perseverance are undoubtedly essential factors in the equation, they are not the sole determinants of success.
Success is not just about working hard; it’s about working smart and embracing the intricate web of factors that lead us to our desired destination.
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