Are you a failure in your life because you are not willing to work hard?

 Generally speaking, Hard work is a precursor to success in life. Which could be bad news for you when you are not willing to work hard. And you certainly limit your choice. But don’t be disheartened.

Does working hard alone define success? The definition of success has changed a lot. No longer hard work alone is a compulsory condition for success.

Also, it depends a lot on how you define hard work. Hard work could often mean you have to work long hours on something you do not enjoy. However, if you spend long hours doing something you enjoy you may not call it hard work. For example, if you enjoy playing guitar, you would not mind playing it for hours or feel that you are working hard. If you make your profession something you enjoy doing, possibly you will never feel like working hard. And you can always be successful, rather there is a much higher chance that you would be successful. This is one way of becoming successful without working hard.

Secondly, your success rate would be much higher when you are engaged in a profession of your liking, you would be required to spend much less time & effort rather than engaging in a profession that is not your forte and you don’t enjoy doing. There, even if you spend long hours you would not be able to match those for whom that is an area of liking or expertise.

We are all having different liking and different abilities. A great painter may not become a great singer, or a great player may not become a great scientist. So if we choose our field intelligently there is a higher possibility of achieving success while enjoying our profession. However, here is one caution when you are competing with the best even in your chosen field you have to do more than you intend to do. But don’t worry you would enjoy doing that.

Results always do not depend on how many hours you work. That can not be a yardstick of efficiency or productivity. There is a word called smart work. Many of our hard work can be replaced by smart work. Like you farmer can replace his pair of bulls for plowing field with a tractor ( if budget permits)

I would give the following example from professional life how hard work is not always smart work. Or how hard work may not always lead to success.

It's a story of two professionals in the same office. And we need to identify who is more efficient - an officer who finishes his work timely every day and leaves the office at 5.30 PM and the other, very sincere, dedicated, works very hard, works extra hours and leaves the office mostly by 8 PM.

Probably we would be in a fix for a while. But the answer is The First One. Why?

Well without knowing the background it is actually a bit difficult to make any assumption and one could go wrong in his analysis. But If you take a holistic view following would be your interpretation.

1. The First officer being able to finish his assignment timely every day is more efficient.
2. He is able to plan & prioritize his tasks and being able to finish his tasks in a time-bound manner every day.
3. And to do this I assume he must have developed or had an able and efficient team to support him on whom he can rely.
4. I assume he must be delegating assignments smartly in an optimum way so as to foster team building, building a sense of ownership and responsibility.
5. I assume he must have built up a value chain, where every member delivers his best, increasing overall efficiency and productivity.
6. I assume he must have developed a system where the absence of one member doesn’t hamper the task progress critically since others can contribute. It becomes a team game.
7. He can release himself and his staff timely so that work-life balance is maintained and everyone is motivated. There would hardly be any scope for any resentment.
8. The employee satisfaction index would also be high.
9. He could be developing leadership capability in the team.
10. The cost of establishment would also be under control because of the timely close of the office saving energy cost

If we take the example of the other officer who is very sincere, dedicated, and hard-working but managed to go home very late on most occasions. there could be a possibility of the following.

1. He could be working in an isolated manner. He may be averse to working in a collaborative manner.
2. His isolation could take him away from the grassroots reality.
3. He may have issues with prioritizing his assignments.
4. There could be skill-related issues or an absence of a support system.
5. Maybe he does not rely on the team, or there is no team to support him, or he is not creating a team beneath him, there could be an absence of mutual trust.
6. He doesn’t delegate assignments.
7. He could fail to build up a strong ecosystem.
8. He may have issues in collecting inputs, or people may not come forward to him proactively. He may be missing very important feedback.
9. He makes himself kind of indispensable, however, his absence ( if something happens to him ) could stall the task's progress completely.
10. If he has a team, they would also be forced to work late spoiling the work-life balance. Which could create resentment and in the long term affect employee dissatisfaction and could lead to attrition.
11. If the officer himself doesn’t take leave, he could discourage others from taking leave or he may find it difficult to sanction leave making the life of his team-mate more difficult.

Though apparently even though the 2nd officer looks to be an asset to the organization. However in spite of his sincerity, dedication, and hard work, overall he may not be very helpful in increasing organizational efficiency and productivity. Rather at times, his working over hours could be detrimental to the organization.

So if we need to promote one of them, definitely we would promote the 1st Officer even if he is junior in experience. In today's corporate world experience in terms of numbers of years in service alone doesn’t make you qualify for promotion. A junior with much less experience but with better efficiency could overtake you at any time. It's a matter of smart work. You see lot of examples of Corporate CEOs who are in their early thirties. One could have thirty years of experience but most of them could be ineffective or wrong. Success will depend on the quality of your work or smart work rather than your hard work alone. You could be plowing with your pair of bulls for the whole day but still would be able to match two hours of plowing with a tractor. You need to work on your efficiency if you do not want to work hard. If your knife is sharp enough you don’t have to spend much time in cutting something.

So my dear friend you want to be successful without doing hard work you have to find a way to do smart work.

Let us take the example of the US President, he is still able to take holidays even out of his busy schedule. I am sure the amount of problem, tension, and workload on the US president would not be lower than that on any other nation head. But how many other nation heads are able to go on holiday?

How to overcome disappointment after failure

As a trainer / mentor and coach I come across this question quite often. In fact I have found that people who has failed at least once and failed big has much bigger chance of success in life.

I always say that “The Size of Your Failure will Define the Size of Your Success” & my 2nd mantra “ Faily early and fail Big” If you haven’t failed then you haven’t tried enough, or you are operating from your comfort zone, or the size of your goal / vision is very small. Most of us who has not failed, possibly are operating from safety zone. So don’t be afraid to fail.. If you are on a mission for cleanliness, be ready to get your dress dirty. I remember a famous Ad tag line”Daag Achhe Hain” Only caution - the stain should be limited to your dress only not on your character. Otherwise “Kapde to gande Honge hi”

A child can not learn walking without falling. But a child never feel bad about falling, neither people discourage him. Rather people keep on encouraging. But the picture get change the moment we attain our childhood. The same set of people who used to encourage us even after our repeated failure to take the first baby step, start criticizing us the for smallest failure. And slowly and gradually we become afraid to take risk and do new things for fear of failure. Failure become stigma, whereas failure is the first sign of success - means you are trying to do something you haven’t done earlier. without which you neither get success nor get failure.

If your goal big, chances are there that your failure will also Big. But if you get disappointed at the first sign of failure, that would be like accepting defeat. The power of your passion will be tested only when you fail, not when you pass at the first attempt. Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb.

Failing doesn’t matter. What is important is that what you do with your failure. I have been interview guide for corporate level for quite some time being in panel for over 1000 interview. I have seen for senior positions in corporate, candidate who never had a major failure in life wouldn’t get selected - the selectors would like to know what did you do with your failure, how did you managed your emotion, what has been your attitude. They would like to know how strong you are, If misfortune strike, how are you going to behave, how are you going to take the organisation out of the crisis. For the top most level job in the corporate sector this is final question, which will set you apart. Otherwise all the candidates will be having degrees from the finest institution, massive experience, impressive success stories and track record. But the man form boys will be separated on the basis of the failure stories.

All these answer wouldn’t come from your success, the answers will come from your failure and what did you do about them. Whether you sit back at home being disheartened or your try with double enthusiasm. Observe a baby taking its early strep for motivation. It depends what lesson you take from your failure. Analyse your failure, dissect it threadbare. There are tools & techniques available. Get yourself a trainer / coach or a mentor. Having talent may not be enough particularly when you are fighting a pro. The legends like Roger Federer also hire service of personal coach even today. We take tuition for our class X exam. But unfortunately we do not take tuition or coaching for the bigger battle of our life where stakes are much higher. Many of us fail inspite of having talent, just because of not having proper guidance.

Your college education may not be enough for the battle of life. How many of us get the opportunity to use the learning of college life in real life apart from the subject matter expert like Doctors, lawyers etc. But even the subject matter experts need some extra inputs, some extra skill set to be successful in their respective domain. Here the exams are different. Its important to fail early since stakes are smaller.

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