The Importance of Hard Work
The research on success suggests that people who achieve career success have a significant period in their lives when they work very hard.
Despite what you may read elsewhere, if you want to achieve success with a degree of integrity then you need to accept this. Getting rich quickly with little effort usually means you are getting more than you are giving and that doesn’t tend to feel right for people who want to achieve meaningful success. They want to provide genuine value to the people who pay them and this means they work hard and try to do a good job.
So how do they manage that? How do they manage to devote so much time and energy to their work?
Danielle Duell is CEO of The Spicers Group (gorgeous retreats and restaurants around Australia). She is delightful. She is always utterly gracious and never seems hurried even though she has a lot on her plate as both a CEO and a mother of two young children. I asked her how she manages to find the energy to keep going and she said:
‘I am always deliberate about choosing to apply myself to things that I am passionate about or believe in. So I find that I do my best work when I’m doing what I love. I guess the first step is to be conscious about what do I love? Does this fit with the things that I’m passionate about? So then it just comes naturally and the creativity flows easily, the energy comes. It’s not an effort; it’s a joy.
But there’s something else, I think, in me, in that drive… whatever I do, I do it to the best of my ability. So whatever I do, I will give it my absolute best shot and I take great pride in producing quality outcomes.’
So the lesson for me is:
- Accept the hard work. It really is a necessary part of the journey to meaningful success
- Be deliberate about choosing what to work hard at. Do I believe in it? Does it align with my values?
- Once I decide to do something, give it my best shot – even when my mind is telling me that it’ll never work and I would be better doing something else.