Stairs of hard work take you to the top

Think of hard work like a never-ending treasure trove from which you can withdraw as much as you want, to get to your destination. There may be opportunities where you may not need to do any hard work at all, so keep an eye out for that. It's not entirely about talent. Hard work is just the remainder that you need to put in place of your talent. Sometimes it's more and sometimes less. Whatever distance you need to go, you'll need to rely on your skills. Wherever they fall short, hard work needs to be substituted.

Is getting into Google for a job your only dream? Or do you have something substantial to bring to that company? If it is the former, you'll be pleasantly surprised to know there are many other companies that offer the necessary job satisfaction. However, if you've got something of immense value, you can always find ways to bring it to their company, not necessarily through job channels. Don't discount hard work at any time though. You may not be able to fully grasp a situation presently when you have big dreams. Take one thing at a time, take action step-by-step. You'll eventually get there.

Frankly, you need hard work and talent only if you don't know people. I'll bet you anything that there are plenty of average persons working at all of the top companies, including Google, Apple, IBM, etc. People who have talent, vision, dedication and money generally start their own companies -- without outside financing. Hard work, dedication, and a desire to serve will, in the end, take you much farther in life than any amount of intelligence or even money.

Can hard work beat intelligence? Always! “Intelligence” measured by IQ is a ridiculously over-rated parameter. I’m constantly meeting people who are clearly more intelligent than I am (in the IQ sense) who have had frustrating and non-productive lives. Off the top of my memory, I can’t think of a single highly-intelligent individual who was successful without very hard work. And I can think of many who would score low on a standard IQ test who have been very successful.

IQ measures a very narrow form of ability, typically the ability to think abstractly and solve abstract problems. Of course, there are many other forms of intelligence too: intelligence in evaluating people; intelligence in music; intelligence in understanding complexity; real-time intelligence (used in video games and fast-action sports). Most of these are ignored by the usual IQ test. But few people have multi-dimensional intelligence, and they must make up for that by hard work. By hard work I don’t mean putting in lots of hours. I mean using your intelligence (yet another kind!) to organize and run your life.

The most productive people in the world combine multi-dimensional intelligence (abstract, people, complex data, real-time) with very hard work. "Work smart not hard" is one of the worst bits of advice I've ever been given - I followed it for a few years. The reason that it's such bad advice is that "not hard" part. The right advice, in my view, is if you want to achieve something incredible, work hard, so damn hard it hurts, then work even harder.

And why not bother mentioning the “work smart”? Because anyone that is going to work hard is going to work as smart as they can - unless they're completely stupid. Hard work is important, but not because it’s guaranteed to make you successful (since it isn’t.) Hard work is important because it’s how you show yourself what you can do. It’s this that gives you confidence: the sense that no matter what happens, you have the ability to figure it out.

The real value of hard work is that you prove to yourself you can trust you. People can’t follow hard work for a long time because their passion and interest doesn’t always resonate perfectly with the nature of work that they do or have to do. Life is full of imperfections and so are the people. A little break here or there from (hard) work is fine, but success comes to those who use their rest and recreation time to recharge themselves and return to hard work with renewed focus and vigor.

Successful people master both the approaches to work - do what they love to and love whatever they do. Success is a subjective term and someone may even be contended with a simple, happy family life with just about sufficient monetary earnings. Coming back to hard work, grit or determination is another factor that decides how consistently someone can do focused hard work. I think it is important to be happy while you work hard. Maintaining concentration in work doesn’t come easy and may be that’s why people can’t do focused hard work for a long period of time. Consequently, they switch their route and the nature of work that they are doing. They seek change from the monotony of doing the same work for too long a period of time, especially when the result of their hard work is not matching their expectations.

Those people become winners who are able to stay more determined than the average human level and define their success through their own absolute standard instead of a relative one (constant comparison to others’ progress). Slow, continuous, incremental, step-wise progress towards goal is the best measurement of your progress through hard work. As you mentioned, many people expect quick success, which is nothing but an illusion and give up their belief in hard work, sooner or later.

Working hard and hustling towards your dreams is one of the key experiences in life no matter what the result is, and the kind of satisfaction hard-work gives is difficult to explain in words. If you haven’t worked hard you have probably never experienced failure/success or the plethora of other emotions that accompany them, which is alarming because You definitely need to try working hard once to decide if its worth it or not ! The sense of fulfilment and gratification that hard-work bestows upon a person is just amazing.

Let me tell you.. There is nothing better than working towards your ultimate dream while others sleep peacefully…And although the fruit that hard-work bears for you might be bitter or sweet, you will always have the satisfaction of giving your best shot at everything. You just need to try. Here is a translation of a Hindi poem by Harivansh Rai Bachchan that will definitely motivate you: ( Koshish karnewalonki kabhi haar nahi hoti)

You cannot take your boat across the sea

If you are afraid of the waves,

The one who tries

Never fails.

The tiny ant carries a small grain in its mouth,

Climbs up on the wall, slips and falls a hundred times,

The determination in the mind fills your body with courage,

Then climbing up and falling down does not hurt,

Ultimately, its efforts do not go waste,

The one who tries

Never fails.

The diver dives into the water of the sea,

He returns empty handed a number of times,

Not easy it is to find a pearl in the deep waters,

But this in turn doubles his enthusiasm,

His hands are not empty every time,

The one who tries

Never fails.

Failure is a challenge, accept it,

Recognise your shortcomings, rectify them.

Till you are successful, shun rest and sleep,

Never run away from the battlefield of hard work,

You cannot get praise without working for it,

The one who tries

Never fails.

Cheers!.