WORK – activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.
I looked up the definition in Google and found the above.
What is Your Purpose? What Result Do You Want?
Depending on what your answers are to the two questions above, work can mean very different things.
If you hate your job then you probably only want to work there four hours per week, if that.
If the given purpose is to clean the garage, then yes you want the amount of time you spend on it to be as short as possible, or even better pay someone else to do it for you.
In both of these cases, you want to reduce the number of hours spent to avoid it or be more productive with your time.
Are You Doing What You Want With Your Life?
The 84 Hour Work Week
I don’t have any statistics to give you here, but I’d safely say that 80% or more people are not living the life they want.
Chances are if you were doing what you love, you would rather have the 84 hour work week than the 4 hour work week. You would relish every second, you couldn’t wait to wake in the morning.
So much of what I read lately is to earn passive income and live your life traveling and laying around on the beach. Sure that would be great for a couple of weeks, but could you honestly see yourself doing that for the next 40 years?
Not me…no siree bob.
I play bass. When I play, my brain is off in Disneyworld. I could practice bass or play in one of my bands for ten hours per day, six days a week and never tire of it.
Why Work Hard?
Ok so you agree that work is necessary and if you’re doing something you love then you have a purpose worth working for.
But why work so hard at it?
1. Make What You Love To Do, What You Do For a Living. To replace what you’re currently doing with what you want to do is going to take a lot of work. Face it. If you’re sitting on your couch and want a pizza, you can’t hope for one to fly by. You need to get up and go make one and bring it back to the couch. If you want to sing jazz at the local restaurant, you need to take voice lessons every week, practice every day, memorize songs, network with local musicians and do this in addition to every thing else in your life. Can you do it? Yes, look around people do it every day. It can be you too.
2. Quality over Quantity. If you settle for mediocrity, you’re going to get mediocrity. Can you make a living by having mediocre talent? Some would look at a few of the movies out there and say “yes” but I say no you can’t. You need to be really good and to get there is going to take many hours. It might take you three years but who cares, three years will fly by.
3. Competition is Stiff. Chances are if you would love to do something so would a billion others. How are you going to rise above them if you’re only as good as they are, or worse? You won’t. They will beat you every time. Don’t let them. Michael Jordan’s greatness didn’t come by nature. He worked harder than anyone; first to come to practice and last to leave.
4. Work Ethic Trumps Fear. When you work hard at something, then the reality is so much easier to face. I am practicing trading stock options now with a paper trading account. The trades feel real to me, they hurt just as much and I don’t like it when my trades go south. I know when I move to trading with real money that I will be successful because my hard work will have taken me through tough trades before and I’ll know how to handle them or prevent them. You remove crippling fear when you’re already used to dealing with it.
Practical Tools to Help
Ok so I really sounded tough there. I didn’t mean to but it is worth the hard work to achieve success for a purpose that brings you happiness. So what can help you juggle all this extra work and make your life more productive?
1. Goals – Dream big. What do you want out of life? Write it all down and rank them by importance. If you want your own business making $250K per year by age 45 and your now 40, where do you have to be at age 42? Break the big goal down to annual goals and the annual goals to monthly goals and so on down to daily goals. Focus on what is important, forget the rest. Plan your day so you don’t fail.
2. Plan Your Day – Do something towards your lifetime goals every single day. Write it down and do it first. Assess your day before you go to bed or the following day. Make it a habit to do this.
3. Morning Routine – No time in your busy schedule? Wake up early. Set the alarm five minutes earlier every day until you’re up at least two hours before you have to leave for work. Use this time to work on #1 and #2. Write down your morning routine and follow it every day.
4. Take Care of Yourself – You won’t achieve your dreams if you’re not around. Get healthy and stay healthy, if you can. I know, for some, this is impossible but if you can, then eat right and do something physical every day. Sleep seven or more hours per day, cut out stress where you can and stay away from negative people.
I have written in more detail on these topics before. Here are some links to prior posts I think you’ll like.
Thank you for reading. Please share your thoughts on the value of working hard.