How Do We Know What Hard Work Is?
How do we measure hard work? Is there a real metric to tell us that we are working hard? Is it progress and growth or is it accomplishing the goals we want to achieve? Is hard work meeting the standard or exceeding it. How about the hours we work, does that play a factor in if we are working hard or not? Is what hard work looks like determined by my boss or is it determined by me? Is how I feel about the work I do play a factor in determining if I have worked hard? If I feel good is that a sign of hard work or do I have to be miserable and suffering for hard work to exist? The last time I checked there is no real common or acceptable metric for how we determine hard work? At least not one that we all adhere to and accept.
I know over the years the things I’ve mentioned above have been what I have used to measure the success I was having as an individual, and also in the buildings I was working in. This is such a tough thing to measure because of all of the variables mentioned above. I do think that through a lot of reflection, experience and discussions with other people that I have studied or spoken with over the years I have come up with an answer to the question of what is hard work?
One of the things I’ve observed over the years is that most everybody thinks two things about themselves. The first is they want to be successful and the second is that they work hard. Those two things are often not the reality of what is happening. Those two things are deeply connected to one another. We know success doesn’t happen overnight and that we have to persevere and work to get it. The problem occurs when people’s actions don’t meet what they are saying. After years of experience in my own life both professionally and personally I know I thought I wanted to achieve a lot of things and I also know I thought I worked hard. Unfortunately when things weren’t going the way I had hoped or wanted I wasn’t completely honest with myself. I would say to my peers and family that I was working hard on this thing or that thing but the reality was I wasn’t doing, are you ready for it? The HARD WORK. You see that is where working hard really begins and ends. It is with doing the tough things, the things we don’t want to do or like to do. We avoid being uncomfortable way too often and we don’t go all out.
The truth is we rationalize, find barriers and talk too much about all of the obstacles in our way instead of really going all in and being in a relentless pursuit of what we want. We become experts in fooling ourselves way too easily. Don’t get me wrong this isn’t on purpose and we don’t do it to fool ourselves or anyone else it happens naturally. We fail to be vigilant, reflect and take action. How does this happen? It's simple: we get tired, we become distracted by the outside noise and doubt that others may have and we let our guards down.
Call To Action
In order to ensure we are working hard everyday we need to make sure we are doing the hard work. Start with writing down your goals and keep them posted. I used to write personal goals on my bathroom mirror at home. Professional goals were always on a notecard on my desk. When things started to get hard I would go back to my mantra that I refer to often,“when my commitment is greater than my feelings I get results.” Develop your own mantra that keeps you on track. Journal how you feel when you are working on your goals and be honest. Those reflections will be a personal guide post for what you need to do. If you feel uncomfortable or frustrated then you know you are on the right track. Those feelings will lead you to the next set of questions: why do I feel this way? Followed by, what can I do to address it? Making sure you are actually doing the hard work is a skill and just like any other skill you will need to practice it over and over again until you have the strength and expertise to work through it. Once you can do this you are definitely working hard and doing the HARD WORK!
