Success is one of those things that just about everybody wants, but not nearly as many people do what it takes to achieve. It's the expensive sports car, island home, or supermodel body that never goes any further than the thought that originated the idea.
It's the reason why so many people search for a "secret to success"; they want it, but they're afraid of what it might take to get there. They're looking for an easy path; a magic pill that will solve all their problems along the way and give them what they want with minimal effort.
Well, I've got news for you.
There is no magic pill. There is no easy path. There is no secret to success.
You have to work, and you have to work hard.
The sooner you can accept that, the sooner you can start walking the path to success.
There is a simple reason that hard work is a requirement to success: Balance.
In the life, everything requires balance. If one industry falters, another rises to replace it. If there is poverty, there are riches somewhere to counter it. If you eat lots of unhealthy food, your body responds by becoming fat and balancing out.
Success is no different. If you want success, something has to happen for that success to become possible.
If you want a better paying job, you've got to do something to get you there. If you want more traffic to your blog, more sales of your product, or a flatter stomach, you've got to do something that causes the universe to shift in a direction that allows those things to happen.
Of course you could just sit back, wish, hope, and daydream long and hard for the success to come. But guess what? It may never come!
If you really want that success -- if you're not willing to take the chance that success may never come -- then you've got to accept that it won't come without hard work; it won't come without hustling day and night, week after week.
But then even after you've achieved "success", however you define it, you still won't be able to sit back and relax for the rest of your life. That balance requirement still remains.
You'll need to keep your skills updated to maintain that higher paying job; you'll need to continue creating new content or developing new products to keep your traffic or customers interested; and you'll need to continue eating healthy and exercising to maintain that flat stomach.
Why do you think centenarian's so often say the reason they haven't died yet is because they haven't stopped moving?
If you want to keep that success going, then you've got to keep going. Day after day. Week after week. Year after year. For the rest of your life.
So, are you still interested in success? Do you still feel that you have what it takes? Are you still motivated?
Awesome! You're already half way there! All you need to do now is keep going.
Well said Ram. I think a major problem is that in every direction we turn, we find claims of instant, easy success and so we spend so much time in pursuit of those opportunities in the hopes that they really do exist. Of course, they don’t really exist, but somehow it is a hard lesson to learn and we find ourselves chasing the same false paths once again soon after.
But if we could just acknowledge the work that needs to be done and get started on it, we’d finally see real progress that we could build upon. Only then can success be achieved.
So true, Earl. Like a kid in a candy store, it’s so hard to ignore all the claims of easy success. But if we look at those who have achieved success, we see that every single one of them worked hard (or made a ton of mistakes early on and learned from them) before becoming successful.
The sooner we realize that hard work is a requirement, the sooner we can start building our own foundation of success! 🙂
raam, what you wrote its beautiful!!!! ur right about the magic pills…am a young girl…. and for young people.. they think that theres magic pills, and life is going to be good for them… but as we know… thats not true.