The Art of Hard Work
Dreaming is fun, achieving those dreams isn’t always so enjoyable. If you want the things you desire, you’re going to need to work your ass off.
But it isn’t a matter of just doing a lot for a long time. There are different approaches to use along with working hard and you need to find a balance. It’s almost like an art form.
This is the art of hard work.
Work smarter while working harder
One of the new sayings I’ve been hearing more and more is frustrating me more and more; “Don’t work harder, work smarter.” I feel like a lot of people are taking it out of context and see it as advice to find the easiest and shortest way to achieving a goal.
I look at working smarter not as the quickest route or cheating, but as learning from yesterdays mistakes so that you won’t repeat them again.
If you want to achieve a goal you need to not only work smarter, you need to work harder than you have been.
Hard work can be mental work
Hard work may only seem like back breaking labor but there are a lot of people who are putting their minds to hard work. Most tasks that require you to do so are creative such as writing. When you’re doing mental work people might label you as “lazy” because they don’t see you running around, digging ditches, and lifting heavy items.
You need a little patience (or a lot)
Patience is an action you need to take with all your hard work. The results from doing hard work can take a long time to enjoy so you have to find patience to keep you going forward and sane.
Don’t get discourage though, because hard work does eventually produce results. When there’s an action, there has to be a reaction.
Know that good work is hard
Even if you’re doing noble work like helping the homeless, building wells in Africa, and changing lives, it’s going to be hard work. And a lot of the times it’s going to be harder than doing selfish work, perhaps that’s the reason not everyone does it.
Know what to sacrifice and what not to
When you’re working hard you’re going to have to make sacrifices. There’s no way around it. But you need to prioritize and know what is worth sacrificing and what isn’t worth missing.
A few things worth sacrificing:
- A meal – If you’re healthy enough and have enough energy, it might be worth skipping a lunch or dinner once and a while to give yourself more time to achieve a goal.
- Partying – I’m taking about going to get drunk. What’s the fun in it first of all? And secondly, what good are you getting from it, especially with regards to productivity?
- Shopping – If you don’t need anything, try not to go for the fun of it. You spend money you don’t need to spend and you’ll have more junk to cram in your house.
What’s not worth sacrificing:
- Your life – Your life consists of time with family, memories to be made, and stopping to smell the roses.
Don’t get so swept up with achieving goals and a better life that you forget to enjoy the life you already have. Here are a few questions that will help you evaluate what’s worth giving up to get more done and what’s not.
- Is this a once and a lifetime event?
- Is this a “first”?
- Is this a “last”?
- Who’s getting old and might not be around much longer for me to see?
- How much time do I need to give up?
- Am I working so hard to achieve what I already have?
Be your biggest competitor
Working harder than other people is important, but your biggest competition is you. You’ve got to work harder and more efficient than you did in the past and you need to do things differently than you have been to achieve something you’ve never had.
The key to making hard work easier
Hard work can become less like “work” when you have passion and find purpose in what you’re doing.
Writing for this site and promoting it is often hard work, but what makes it so enjoyable is knowing that what I write helps people. It keeps me going and when I receive an email or a comment from a reader telling me how much they enjoy my writing it puts a smile on my face and the hard work doesn’t seem like “work” anymore.
Do you practice the art of hard work? What works for you and what doesn’t? Please share any tips you might have in the comments below.
Related articles:
- Recovery; your missing element for success?
- 5 easy pieces to piecing together your purpose in life
- The art of getting off your ass
Photo by dreamglow
8 Responses to “The Art of Hard Work”
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Thanks Andrew, for all the great reminders about how to learn to achieve and receive joy from the act of work.
I think that so many people would be that much more productive if they really examined how they work and why.
It’s a lesson I learned from someone else, but to paraphrase, “How you do anything, is how you’ll do everything.”
Taking responsibility for every moment is hard, but it’s a sure way to increase the amount of joy and fun throughout your day!
Hey Patrick,
Glad this article provided you with some reminders.
I agree, that if people examined how they were approaching their work and fixed what was broken then they’d be much more productive. That’s where the work smarter aspect comes in to play.
-Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Nowadays it is so easy to get swept away by works, more often then not before you know it you are already being drag into the spinal of despairs. Hence now and then I need to pull myself out and think, your article help, many thanks.
Best regards,
Jasfer
Hey Jasfer,
Glad my article could help you so much.
-Andrew
Great artical ! . . . I felt like i was working hard on my career but not effectively and hard enough. This was a blessing to read, thanks for everything.
Jamaal Sabree
Glad you liked it Jamaal!
-Andrew
Good article. However I’d like to note a few things.
I’ve learned to think about “sacrifices” quite differently. If you are doing something because you want to achieve something you really want, something that is in your personal interest, then what people so often call “sacrifices” aren’t really sacrifices at all. In fact, even altruists aren’t self-sacrificing. The reason they work as hard as they do to help others is because they have the desire to do so and desire is obviously a selfish (in a positive way) emotion.
We are as humans naturally self-interested. The only things that could ever be called a real sacrifice is when we deliberately repress ourselves and try to work against our interests. It’s impossible to be happy that way.
Anyway, another thing about hard work. I personally have a bit of an aversion to that term. I guess it’s partly because of that rather poisonous meme that associates it mainly with physical work (and I’ve been working on the web for years.. which isn’t quite that physical). But another part is that I somehow associate it with authoritarian orders from on high pushing you to just work hard and never think… like what some parents tell people.
Same parents which have spend decades on the same kinds of jobs, never making any progress, always “sacrificing” (as in really sacrificing, repressing themselves because they think they have to) and then telling their kids that “life is hard” and “you need to sacrifice a lot in life” and of course “you need to work hard”.
Their advice isn’t the kind of advice you give here. It’s more cynical than that and instead of encouragement it provides discouragement. If life is really all about sacrifices and unthinking “hard work” for every next buck you can get, doing whatever you can do regardless of whether you love it or not.. then you know.. frak life.
Of course I completely rejected such notions myself and am on a personal journey of success. I just wanted to point out the darker variant of the “work hard” and “sacrifice” advice in case it helps anyone avoid confusing it with what you talk about here.
Cheers
Hi Daniel,
Thanks so much for the thoughtful comment and compliment! I agree with a lot of what you’re saying and it seems like you understood what I was getting at with this article.
-Andrew