It’s pretty clear that you have to work hard for things you want in life but not too many people take the trouble to explain what hard work looks like exactly. I am yet to see a quiz that you can take in five minutes on your lunch break.
Your Hard Work Score is…
4.9/5
Awesome! Way to Go!! Your Future Looks Great!!!
Unfortunately, physical action or exertion isn’t always a good indicator of hard work.
Laying brick on top of brick to build a house is hard work.
How about drawing the blueprint? Checking if the bricks are level? Mixing concrete and sand? Taking time to assess the progress? Ordering wood and nails? Paying the laborers? Figuring out where the light switches and wall outlets go?
Are all these actions also part of the hard work you have to put in to build a house?
I suspect they are and I would go as far as to say that one task isn’t more important than the other.
Laying the bricks is just as important as placing an order for sand and concrete.
Besides the physical action that you take on a day to day, I believe that there are a few subtle indicators that you might be working harder than you think.
You Are Uncomfortable
Hard work and comfort hardly go together. If you are taking risks, putting yourself out there, waking up earlier than you’d like…you aren’t going to be comfortable. If you ever feel like you are in full control of your life, you might need to check that you aren’t stagnating.
Hard work is organized chaos and a lot of the time you cannot control the outcome. You begin to concentrate on what you can control (your actions) and let everything unfold as it will if only to maintain your sanity. Comfort implies that you have a guaranteed outcome which is rarely the case when you are working towards a big goal.
You Have New Experiences
Learning about your field and what it takes to win is part and parcel of working hard. Learning new information and adopting new perspectives that support and empower you towards your goals radically changes the way you experience life.
You meet new people, scrap off some of your old beliefs in favor of new ones, go to different places or simply spend your free time different from how you did in the past.
All these things completely change the way you interact with life and how you perceive it and this change becomes more pronounced as the years go by until you have a new ‘normal’.
You Have More/Bigger Responsibilities
“With great power comes great responsibility.”
Cliché, yes, but also true. With more money, more free time, more knowledge, better relationships, more solid spiritual life, and enhanced perspectives comes bigger responsibility.
Just as a promotion at your job comes with more responsibility, a promotion in your life comes more responsibility. People rely on you more whether it is for something abstract such as advice or something tangible such as taking care of certain tasks. You impact goes beyond yourself and directly touches the lives of others.
You Have a More Positive Outlook
As you consistently work hard, hopefully you realize that you don’t need to know everything before you can take action. One of the constant reminders you encounter is once you start and maintain momentum, things seem to work themselves out. You adopt a kinder attitude towards life and don’t constantly feel assaulted by events and circumstances.
Coincidences or blind old luck happen in ways you couldn’t have drawn up if it was up to you. You feel an odd sense of calm even when the current situation isn’t exactly ideal. You have learned enough to know that these things somehow work themselves out; that you always somehow figure it out and that there is always a bigger picture that becomes clear in the not-so-distant future.
You Have Changed
The dreaded words;
“You have changed”
Change isn’t always bad. As long as you are happy with who you are no one should ever shame you for changing. Hard work requires focus. The irrelevant cannot withstand the glare of focus. You inevitably spend your physical, mental and emotional energy on the things you have identified as priority. Your vision consumes you and transforms you into a completely different person.
For you to get the things you don’t have right now it is inevitable that you will become a different person.
How hard are you working?
On The Way to Find the Way 