Joint Research

27. Research the following aspects of a successful career.

Share the results with your fellow-students in a 2-min statement.

Reading 2

Hard Work Makes the Difference

“I would have to work hard tomorrow.

Work could cure almost anything,

I believed then, and I believe it now.”

Ernest Hemingway

Key factor to success

Charles Darwin, the man who would almost single-handedly redefine biological science, at the outset, was hardly even a scientist. He started out as an amateur naturalist, a beetle collector, a 22-year-old rich-kid dilettante who, after flirting with the idea of being first a physician and then a preacher, was allowed to ship out with the Beagle as someone who might supply good conversation at the captain's table. His father had all but ordered him not to go to sea, worrying that it was nothing more than one of Charles's lengthening list of aim­less exploits. But when this young man came ashore after his five-year voyage, he would not only have shed his aimlessness but would have replaced it with a scientific sense of skepticism and curiosity so rigor­ous and abiding that he would be a workaholic al­most to the day he died. The crucial thing is that he did all this by himself. Darwin worked slowly to master a subject. But he had a restless, hungry mind. He became the model of a modern major scientist. Darwin may have been independently wealthy, but in terms of his vocation, he was a self-made man.

It is a measure of his accomplishment, of how much he changed the world, that the era into which Darwin was born seems so strange to us now. Today one can be self-made in the more conventional way. But the key to it keeps unchanged. It’s hard work, which is many things.

Causes and effects

We live in a complicated, fast world, surrounded by distractions. Getting down to work can be a way to free yourself of all things extraneous. Setting about the task can be a stress reliever, a form of meditation. When we accomplish our goal, we find an immense release in the work preceding. Conversely, it can be punishment for having a whale of a time the night before.

Hard work is tunnel vision. Your working day claims your complete attention and involves all your senses and efforts to the extent of arousing a fervent desire to see the light at the end. With the work over, we are free to appreciate the world afresh and strive for its pleasures. Our feet, heads and stomachs feel light, empty and hungry. Another day of hard work has cured us of whatever burden the morning imposed on us.

Consistency

To keep your muscles strong or your mind sharp, you need to challenge them. The much tougher challenges will usually see a lot less competition and a lot more opportunity. Strong challenge is commonly associated with strong results. There’s an African gold mine two miles deep and tens of millions of dollars’ worth, and it’s one of the most lucrative gold mines ever. These miners tackled a very challenging problem with a lot of hard work, but ultimately it’s paying off.

H emingway knew, as every professional writer, gymnast, jockey, chef and whoever also knows, hard work takes discipline and patience, especially over time. The practice of working hard once a week for an hour illustrates how little of discipline prevails. To do it for eight hours a day, seven days a week, over any number of years sets a real challenge. Consistency is crucial. As Ericsson, a Swedish inventor, notes, "Elite performers in many diverse domains have been found to practice, on average, roughly the same amount every day, including weekends." The greater your capacity and willingness for facing the challenge, the more rewards fall within your grasp and the more likely possessor of a key to a special private treasure room you are. When you discipline yourself to do what is hard, you gain access to a realm of results that are denied everyone else.

Contradicting main flow

S ure anyone may have a fluke every once in a while. People of lesser character will fail to bypass the low hanging fruit, avoiding hard work. The superficial opportunities of life will be attacked by hordes of people seeking a soft option and an easy path to success. The longer this remains the case, the less they will be able to maintain that success, let alone repeat it. Easy living, if unchallenged, will cause physical and mental flabbiness and very mediocre results.

Steve Pavlina, an American self-help author and entrepreneur blasted through the obstacles that stopped others who have less resolve. “When I was developing the PC game Dweep,” he says. “I spent four months full-time working to create the design of a logic puzzle game. I found it extremely challenging to get the design just right. This was where I could get the competitive edge I needed. Most of the market was flooded with clones of older games, the kind of stuff that’s easiest to make. It was much, much harder to design an original game with unique gameplay. But it paid off handsomely. Dweep has won two Shareware Industry Awards in succession and it is still on offer. Everyone claims they have a cool game idea, but they are slow and shiftless to actually turn it into something workable, fun, and innovative.”

When you learn to embrace hard work instead of running from it, you gain the ability to execute on your big goals, no matter what it takes to achieve them.

Daily routine

Hard work is no cakewalk of a job, it might be accepted as painful or uncomfortable. You have to learn to associate more pleasure to the character development you gain than the minor discomforts you experience. Then you become accustomed to spending more time outside your comfort zone. But it’s a struggle within your reach and the benefits far outweigh the cost.

R outine laborious activities in those areas of your life that won’t succumb to anything less than hard work must become a fixture. It’s not make-believe, it’s a fact. Being healthy is hard work. Finding and maintaining a successful relationship is hard work. Raising kids, getting organized, achieving goals, and staying on track – all that is hard work. Even being happy means pushing yourself, as true happiness comes from high self-esteem, and not from denial and escapism.

“Hard work is a potent tool to have on your side,” says Russ Ahlberg, a mechanical engineer, “I’m working hard in Toastmasters to build my speaking skills. I belong to two different clubs and attend 6-7 meetings per month. I strive to explore topics deeply and search for the gold. I’m constantly forced to better my best. I’ve given many speeches, all of them for free. I’ve competed in every speech contest since I joined. I drive myself hard to go pro. I won’t take the easy path to a shallow position. I won’t get up on a stage and spout a bunch of fluffy self-help sound bites that still garner applause and a paycheck but which don’t ultimately help anyone. I’m willing to pay the price whatever it takes. If it takes years, it takes years.”

“Practice makes perfect”

“Practice makes perfect”, as the saying goes. We are only human, that is why perhaps we can never attain true perfection, but each day of practice does bring you closer, as something is always being accomplished. “If as a writer, “says Tim Sharpe, a famous novelist, “you spend six months writing a novel and realize when it’s done that it’s dreadful, you’ll have mastered your skills due to working on it every day. It might be disappointing that you have to chuck your manuscript into the fire, but you are sure to learn from your mistakes. Your strenuous efforts will be an engine of your tremendous growth.”

When eventually developed maturity and responsibility give you the understanding that certain goals will never just flow into your life; they’ll only happen to if you act as the driving force to bring them to fruition. As a bonus, the more you get used to using your own unique skill set, the more confident you will be in your abilities. Hard work fosters faith in yourself.

All the qualities that hard work demands, like discipline, patience, confidence and persistence do not come naturally to many of us. “I am a very impatient person by nature,” confesses Tim Sharp, “I fidget when I sit still for any length of time. I used to skip classes in college simply because I couldn’t sit through an hour of foot-bouncing boredom. But the more I commit myself to working hard at writing, the greater I find my reserves of patience within myself and with many other things like … bad drivers. Let me tell you, during the winter season, there are plenty of bad drivers on the road.”

Motivation

I t is a strong purpose that gets you to the point and turns hard work into a necessity, never an option. While purpose is the why, hard work is the how. Purpose is what turns labor into labor of love and transmutes the pain of hard work into the higher level pleasure of dedication, commitment, resolve, and passion. It turns pain into strength, eventually to the point where you don’t notice the pain as much as you enjoy the strength.

Where does it all leave us? If Darwin was not so irreplaceable as, for example, Thomas Alva Edison, that should not gainsay Darwin’s accomplishment. We must give him his due. He was goal-oriented and brave. He risked his health and his reputation to advance his idea. Darwin was shaped by circumstances, he reacted to the beliefs that steered the world into which he was born and ultimately he reshaped his corner of that world and left it irrevocably changed. All of us have the same chance.