We naturally tend to look for the easy way out and follow the path of least resistance when trying to achieve our goals. Paying the price and following due process seems to be a real pain. If we had our way, we would love to receive the award without paying the price. Slogans like “Don’t work hard, work smart” sound like music to our ears. We hope that we can achieve the desired result by doing little or no work. This has been interpreted by many to mean that there is a lazy way to achieve success. If you’ve tried these shortcuts before, you know that nothing could be further from the truth. There is no lazy route to the top. Without a doubt, the effort can be wasted if it is not applied wisely. Working smart should be the norm. Hard work comes into play in the context of smart work. Without hard work, you can’t get very far.

Becoming the best in any field takes a lot of work. It takes an estimated 10,000 hours of hard work to get to the top of any field. You simply have to pay off your debt. The best in any field are the hardest working people with a very strong work ethic. They come in a little earlier, work a little harder, and close a little later. They don’t hang out with the crowd and their performance is at the highest level. The best athletes in the world work harder than their peers. They show up first on the driving range and usually stay practicing long after their colleagues have left for fun in town.

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful is a lot of hard work” – Stephen King

“It is not the will to win that matters, everyone has that. It is the will to prepare to win that matters” – Paul Bryant

Hard work separates the men from the boys. It takes a great deal of self-discipline to work hard in a focused manner until one gains experience in any field or achieves a meaningful goal. Hard work also involves focusing on personal growth, development, and continuous improvement. Continuous study and learning is hard work. It takes a lot of work and discipline to finish a good book a week if you have a day job and also go about your business after hours. We often know what we need to do to advance to the next level, but we lack the discipline and hard work ethic to do it now. We leave until tomorrow things that we could do today as concerned procrastinators. We console ourselves that we will cross the bridge when we reach it. Instead of preparing today for tomorrow, we lull ourselves into mediocrity thinking that tomorrow will fix itself. It doesn’t work that way. The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.

We have to work hard in a smart way. We have to commit to doing whatever it takes to reach the skill level we desire or achieve the goal we seek. In an increasingly competitive world, talent is no longer the differentiator, but hard work. Given the same skill level, if you practice when your opponent is doing something else, by the time the two of you meet, it’s easy to guess who will take the lead. Work hard, work smart, work harder, do whatever it takes to achieve your goal. There is no alternative to hard work. The people who sell easy solutions through the books they sell worked hard to write and market those books. They are the ones who will get rich quick, if they find enough gullible people to believe their story. You finish with the book while they finish with the money. Shortcuts are usually the longest route to your destination. By the time you find out that it doesn’t work, you’ll have wasted valuable time, energy, and resources. Principles do not respect people. It is possible to find an easier way to accomplish a task, but there is no alternative to hard work when it comes to sustainable success.