Hard Work, What Exactly Is It?

We experience it all the time- from motivational posters, sports crushes, and cliché movie lines, “Work Hard!” (Along with its partners, “Stay Positive!” and “Don’t Give Up!”) has gradually become one of the default phrases of advice for anyone pursuing after a dream or goal.

But if we were to peel away the surface level understanding of what hard work means, what would we find?

For some time now, I thought I fell into that category of a hard worker. I always nodded diligently when I was prescribed the “Work Hard!” advice and preceded to do my best to not be a failure in the expectations that I had set for myself.

However, during this past year and a half of mingling with entrepreneurial, techie nerds I couldn’t help but think that I was doing anything but the opposite of working hard. Standard 40-45 work weeks was a mere shadow of what these Silicon Valley Savants were juicing out of their 24 hour daily lives.

Which then raises the question -“Does hard work always equate out to x number of hours put in?” What if there’s more to that equation?

Questions needed to be asked. Perspectives needed to be introduced.

So, over the last week I sent out an email to a diverse group of individuals about what hard work meant to them. CEOs, teachers, therapists, and parents all responded with answers that would help mold and break down what I thought hard work meant.

And it turned out to be pretty simple equation:

(not my best Shepard Fairey creation, I know)

Let’s break down each component of this equation.

1. Passion / Motivation

“Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for we care about is called passion.” – somewhere on Pinterest

At the core of being an effective hard worker, there was a general consensus that having passion and a declarative WHY motivates us in the tasks that we do, especially during the times we lose focus, hit a road bump, or become inconsistent.

Crystal, a high school Math teacher used her own teaching methods as an example:

Working hard doesn’t make you passionate. Being passionate makes you work hard. If the focus in my classroom is to build “hardworking” students, then yes, my students will connect our daily objectives to their goals and experience success. However, if my focus is to raise PASSIONATE, URGENT, and JOYFUL students, they will develop deep convictions, high expectations, intrinsic motivation, and the character needed for enduring success.

Starting with the right mentality and internal motivations should be the first step in learning to work hard.

2. Focus

Staying focused and not being distracted can seem like a conundrum in today’s technology, media centric world. The Internet has captured our attention in more ways than we could have ever imagined, at a speed and ease of accessibility better than we could have ever hoped.

Noise, there’s a lot of it.

There’s a difference between someone who spends 1 hour, staying focused with clear goals and laser sharp self-discipline versus the Facebook, SMS/MMS addict who spends a whole day trying to accomplish the same task.

Which one are you?

There’s a myriad of articles/blogs/books that you can Google later on productivity hacks, but the message is always the same:

Do what you gotta do to stay focused.

Zig Ziglar might have said it better-

“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.”

Build a habit of intense focus, and you’ll be that much closer to your goals.

3. Resilience

Resilience is the moment (or moments) when you consciously decide, then act to say no to failure.

We find failure in a multitude of ways.

On the micro level, we allow negative, procrastinating thoughts to cloud our decision-making abilities. A string of these micro failures over time can lead to a more catastrophic macro-like failure, which can reduce once hard workers to become immobile in taking action.

On the other hand, macro failures that are out of our control can halt us in our paths as well. They effortlessly topple our mountain of great victories and allow these micro failures to seep into our daily routines again.

People who work hard endure these pains and create fresh opportunities to learn, improve, and grow. They have a habit of resiliency that immediately replace negative micro level thoughts and find the mental strength to move past the macro ones.

4. Consistency

Entrepreneurs, dancers, authors and other creative professions are all tied by a common thread of belief – to be successful requires a consistent influx of hard work.

I could take a basketball, walk to the park, and put forth what I think is my best workout of jump shots, plyometrics, free throws, etc for a couple hours. But can I repeat that same effort for a year? For five years? Can I stay consistent?

Staying consistent at a singular task, goal, or dream will naturally weed out the individuals who just want the quick fix, quick scheme solution. Hard workers take pleasure in the process of the journey instead of fixating their eyes on the end prize.

Who knows, if I sacrificed enough, stayed consistent enough, maybe I could have been the second Jeremy Lin of the NBA!

5. Evaluation

The last piece of this equation is also arguably the most important.

Technology, along with the distracting noise that it brought, also introduced new tools and ideas on how we can become more efficient and effective in how we work. There are now oceans of apps, Youtube videos, and online services targeted to eliminate any culprit of time/energy wasters.

In fact, even as I type, I have a tool enabled that is preventing me from visiting any distracting websites called SelfControl for Mac users. (it’s super helpful, and free!)

It’s up to us to analyze and stay mindful on what works and what doesn’t. It takes a conscious, mental effort to honestly evaluate the habits/processes that are in place and to modify or even delete them.

Cody, the Founder of RockIT Recruiting noted –

“As you near your goal, retrace your steps to look for areas of improvement; never skip a step.”

And Chris, Super Dad and VP of Marketing @ Pivotshare also shared –

“We can be very efficient in things that have no real worth both to us, and to the world at large. I guess I would rather work “smart” in light of my overall goals, than work “hard” at things that don’t really matter.

Which one are you? A hard worker? Or a hard and smart worker?

Hard Work – How Do You Measure Up?

And there we have it! The 5 components that defines what it means to be a hard worker:

Passion– what drives you

Focus– what stabilizes you

Resilience– what empowers you

Consistency– what separates you

Evaluation– what fine-tunes you

At the end of the day, the only person who can definitively and honestly say whether you worked hard or not is you.

Riche, a Behavior Interventionist adds: “If I don’t feel accomplished and proud of the work I’ve done on a project, I can’t define my work as being drive or “hard enough.”

I am confident that possessing a more defined framework on hard work can only lead you and I to a stronger approach to our goals and dreams -during each second, during each year, and during each victory.

So I’ll leave you with one last quote for the road from Dave, CEO of Likeable Local and NY Times Best-Selling Author:

“Hard work means putting in 100% of your body, mind, heart and soul into something. Only you know how hard you really worked on something.”

Thanks for reading,

Albert

P.S. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the post –

What am I missing in this equation? What are your own definitions for success? How can you become a harder worker?

Sound off in the comments below or send me a message!