In the previous months, I held a presentation at a school. One pupil asked me something along the lines of, „Is it hard to succeed?” I didn’t have a prepared answer.
I’ve been thinking about the topic. What would I say now?
First, there are two separate things:
- Work, effort. The word „passion” comes from „suffering”. When you hear „someone has a passion”, it means that person is working, is putting an effort. Work is generally passionate, which means it’s a sort of effort. You might enjoy this effort, but generally, passion and work are related.
- Success, realization. OK, you do some work, but you need to get a result. If a person is digging holes, and another person is filling them with dirt, the fact that the person who was supposed to plant trees is sick for the day doesn’t help. It doesn’t matter that the person digging and the person who adds dirt did their job. What matters is the end result – trees need to be planted. Just digging holes and filling them up with dirt brings no one anything good. If you work and don’t create something, it’s not good.
You can see this in marathon runners.
- First, there’s a big effort. Preparation, working for months, training. Then, at the time of the race, lot of effort. Passion is there.
- Then, you need a result. At least finish the marathon in a „decent” time (whatever that may be) and, perhaps, even make it to the podium.
Some people have factors that help them. There might be people who have a genetic advantage for running marathons. You can win a marathon, perhaps with much less work than someone who is not gifted. Also, you could put a lot of effort and, despite this, perhaps you don’t sleep well the night before, and you are tired right before the start.
What I’m trying to say is that work & success generally come together, but at times you can work and have no results, and also you can skip working and still succeed. But, as a general rule, they tend to be related.
Coming back to marathons and work, some people enjoy doing marathons, even if it’s a lot of work, and the marathon itself is generally painful. Some people like to work long hours, even if it’s not that easy.
Also, success is not guaranteed. You can work and not succeed.
Also, both work and success are not easy. If they were easy, everyone would do it, everyone would work a lot, and everyone would run marathons. It takes a bit of passion. Also, success is not for everyone, there’s generally a single person who is the champion.
On the other hand:
There’s no such thing as a loser who wakes up at 5am and works out – Ali Abdaal and Sahil Bloom
OK, do the work, put passion into running marathons, and you are not a loser. Perhaps not a champion, but certainly not a loser.
Coming back to the initial question – is it hard to succeed? The answer is – „by definition is not easy. But just by showing up and doing the work, you might not be the champion, but you’re not a loser, either. Do the work, with passion, and you’re not a loser”.
What should your goal be?
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” ― Norman Vincent Peale
Is it possible to enjoy work? Sure, for a lot of reasons, you can enjoy work. But it’s like running a marathon – there’s still some pain involved. You like to run marathons, but there’s a bit of passion, also. You might enjoy working, but you do put passion in it.
Also, it matters whether you succeed or not. It’s one thing to become a successful lawyer and it’s a different situation in the first years of practice. It’s one thing to be a successful accountant, and things are different at the beginning. And in other fields, being a top performer is totally different than the performer one is at the beginning of their professional journey.
