You have probably heard this a hundred times, "you have got to work smart not hard to succeed".
How do you define working smart though? Would working smart mean less work and not working hard to be smart? If we work hard does that have nothing to do with working smart? Do smart people not work hard? or do hard workers not work smartly ? Confusing, right! Let's take a deeper look.
Traditionally, working hard is considered to be the cornerstone of achievement. You work hard at something, burn midnight oil, sweat and out run everyone else around you, to reach your goal. Maybe it's school, or grad school, or looking for a job. Maybe its learning a new skill, or improving an existing one for that manner.
It has been well known, said a hundred thousand times and drilled into our heads - "if you want to succeed, work hard". "You have to burn midnight oil". "Life is not easy, you have to work very hard to achieve something ". I completely am a fan of this thought, yet so many us miserably fail at achieving our goal even after working so hard at it. We sometimes fall just short by inches, left to bite the dust. I have personally tasted this failure, even though I worked so hard at things. I just did not succeed.
What was wrong? Was I not working hard? I was working very hard ! So what was wrong! Oh no, Was it about being smart ?
Being smart is about making smart choices. Its about making the right decision, the right step or the right choice. Smart people move up the ladder real fast. They also are the ones that have great cars, lot of money, and everything else the rest of us desire. Right?
These are people that played smart and won big times. Seems so easy. But does that also mean they did not work hard to be where they are. Consider some very famous people, your idols, and your heroes. Did they just work smart and not hard? My honest opinion. They worked very hard. They worked so hard that we cannot even imagine what they went though. People who are successful in business life, work, or a profession typically go through hell before they can reap the rewards of success.
Take the example of musicians. Training for 8 to 12 hours a day is not uncommon among the top highly paid musicians in the world. Similarly performers, artists, professionals spend hundreds of hours honing their skills, without taking any shortcuts to perfect their art and to stay at the top. As you reach the pinnacle of success, you start making less mistakes. As you grow more experienced, you make less errors, and this results in something that saves you a lot of time, effort and energy. You have now become smart. You now make smart choices. You now play smart!
Working hard or working smart cannot be separated from each other. Even when working hard you have to make smart choices. You cannot just wake up one day and say to yourself, "Today I will make smart choices". No, you should be saying that to yourself every day and work "hard" on it.
Give anything your best shot and work towards your goals like there is no tomorrow. Be strong willed and work hard to get what you want, because the desire to achieve something is only as strong as the smallest distraction that can take you away from it. Be smart about setting your goals and planning how to achieve your goal. Be smart about making choices in life and then work on making those choice spring you good things. Work hard in making smart choice and work even harder to learn how to make smart choices. Make mistakes but be smart enough to learn from them.
Try to be smart in making your choices in life and work hard towards fulfilling your dreams !