Success takes work. Lots of it. I believe that people intrinsically know that. But people all too often assume that hard work will always lead to success. While I’m all in favor of hard work, you also have to be efficient and smart about how you direct your efforts.
Having a job of digging ditches and then filling them back in would definitely be hard work, but it accomplishes nothing at the end of the day. In fact, that’s a form of mental torture.
If someone emailed you a spreadsheet of 50 long division problems, you could print them out and do them on paper, by hand, which would be hard work, but leaving them in the spreadsheet and having your computer calculate them would be faster and easier and still get the same job done. And the computer won’t make mistakes. There is no shame in doing things efficiently.
Don’t get caught up with busy-work and fool yourself into thinking that just because you’re working hard that you’re moving towards your goals.
Driving around the block 10 times puts the same mileage on your car and takes the same amount of time as driving forward 40 blocks. Except one way you end up right where you started and the other you end up way ahead.
The point is that it’s easy to get caught up with performing the menial tasks of life and end up delaying or losing your bigger-picture goals and dreams.
Your path to success will be straighter and faster if you always keep your big-picture dreams in focus and work towards them efficiently and wisely.
Always keep your dreams in sight and constantly make good decisions to reach them. If you feel like you’re just spinning your wheels, evaluate what you can do to get out of that rut. If you’re going to be moving, be moving forward.
-DD
