Hard Work Won’t Always Bring Success

If you’ve been working as hard as you can but find yourself unable to reach success, take a step back, and analyze your methods.

?Is there something you’re doing wrong?

Is there something you can improve on?

How can you work smarter instead of harder?

?Be kind to yourself! Success will come if you know the right ingredients to it.

The world tends to see success through a very narrow perspective.

Most often, it means having lots of income, so that new shiny things are affordable – the big house, the new car every two years, that country club membership, etc.

?But success has a much broader definition. It includes great relationships, doing what we love, helping to make this world a better place, and to and being happy with who we are and with what we are yet to become.

Within this broader context, then, a lot of smart and hardworking people are not successful. Here are the things that keep them from that success.

The school is a sandbox. We learn to follow the instructions of our teachers; we practice getting along with others in a contrived environment; we learn that working hard will get us good grades and lots of praise; we learn how to memorize and take tests.

?Not Knowing When to Ask for Help

This may come from a lingering sandbox ego. Smart people achieve success through hard work – they always have. So, if things are not working out, then it just means they have to work harder. And so they do.

And in the end, when they do not ask for that help, they often fail. And because failure is intolerable, they feel utterly destroyed.

People who have experienced failure in the sandbox can tolerate it, and they learn to rise above failure on when it is critical for their success.

Never failing at something means we haven’t tried new things – how boring and unfulfilling is that?

?Disclaimer: The information on this POST is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional advice. The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. All content, including text, graphics, images and information, contained on or available through this article is for general information purposes / educational purposes only, and to ensure discussion or debate.

Thank you?….Life, unfortunately, is not a sandbox. And if we continue to exist in that sandbox, we are always waiting for others to tell us what to do, what and how to learn, and how to be successful.

Not Reaching Out for New Connections

Lots of smart, hardworking people tend to move in the same circles – that’s where they are comfortable.

They continue relationships with like-minded friends from high school or college; they find a niche of like-minded people in their workplace.

They stick with these relationships, because they are safe and because they reinforce the values, principles, and inbred standards of “work and play.”

Doing this narrows a person’s perspective so much that s/he does not see the almost limitless possibilities within the world.

Do you want to add a word or two?

Not Taking Risks

Smart, hardworking people often choose security over freedom.

There’s a lot to be said about security, of course. But here’s the thing:

That security can become so important that we can’t force ourselves to take the risks that will move us up in that hierarchy, and we live what Thoreau called, “lives of quiet desperation.”

We are trapped in our bubbles, and we then come to the end of lives wondering what might have been. Taking those first steps are scary, but just one can lead to the next and the next?

Thinking up great new ideas has its place, but when there is no follow through, they are, in the end, just daydreams.

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Not Living in the Now

While many focus on the fact that they should not worry about their futures, this also means not living in the past.

One of the most important principles of success is that the past is a great teacher, but it is not a predictor of success today.

Every day, we must wake up thinking what ca I accomplish today?

What new idea can I work on today?

How can I impact others and the world around me today?

Insisting Upon Perfectionism

Smart, hardworking people often insist upon perfection.

This is a holdover from the sandbox of school. They needed that 100% on a test; they needed that perfect “A” paper. And when they get into the world, that habit continues.

The problem with perfectionism is that we don’t move forward and are seen by others. Perfectionists cannot delegate and cannot let their team members make mistakes and grow. They micro-manage everything.

?Very often, the most successful people are moderately talented but very lucky .

Were the most successful people also the most talented ones?

That’s what we would expect… if we assume that we reward the most successful people because they are more talented or intelligent than other people.

?We discovered that this is not the case. Instead, very often, the most successful people are moderately talented but very lucky.

We discovered a strict correlation between luck and success.

Encountering a series of lucky events was responsible for incredible success even if their individual talent was lower than super talented people.

This is what we usually see around us in the real world.

There are plenty of instances of people who we don’t consider particularly smart but in some way they reach a high level of wealth and success.

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