With the rapidly changing times, our interpretation of success is shifting and so is our drive to work towards a specific goal. And I being the 90s kid as seen it all from the first smartphone to the first Facebook page. So, what exactly changed in all these years that has made children’s aspirations from being a pilot or an astronaut to now aspiring to be just a mere “influencer”?
Everybody is in search of a get-rich-quick formula, being shared on the internet every hour getting millions of views overnight. But nobody is willing to put effort to get there. It’s an old saying here in our part of the world “whatever you get early will leave you early”. Everything and anything you put your time and effort is multiplied and given back to you in the form of “Baraka”, It’s an Arabic word meaning Blessing from God.
The formula for smart work is simple, put in the minimum amount of effort to get maximum results, with this picture shared millions of times on the internet.
But this fails to explain that in order to reach a place where you can actually work smartly start by going through the process of hard work. Just think about can you really know a smart way to maneuver a task that you have never done in your life.
The book “Ego is the enemy” highlights an important point, if you look at all men and women in the past who achieved great success either through fame or leadership, you’ll find two types of them one who are born with a belief in themselves and achieved success overnight and the other type who rose to success gradually one step at a time in such a way a that they find their own success as a constant surprise. But the important thing to note is even those who are born with the belief still went through hoops to generate the success that they did.
Yes, success is generated through effort and hard work, one might argue that success is achieved through sheer luck where people get rich or famous or both overnight. But is that really the case? If you read the biographies of all the successful people in the world one thing, you’ll find consistent is that all of them went through their fair share of failure and grunt work to reach where they reached.
Now that I’ve made my point clear that hard work is really needed if you want to achieve absolutely anything in life here are a few tips for all the aspiring people out there that worked for previously successful people.
1- Talk less, do more
Those who know do not speak.
Those who speak do not know.
—LAO TZU
In the biography of Mashal Obama, she speaks about the time when she met Barack Obama. She introduces the love of life in the most intriguing ways possible. She was working at a local law firm as an attorney and a new kid joined as an intern. She mentions one thing that stood out to her was his silence. Although he got done everything that he was asked to do, he was a man of few words. She continues by saying that during their early marriage day when he was running for the Senate if a problem needed solving, he would lock himself in his office until the task was tackled. She adds who knew one day He would be the president of the United States.
The funny thing is there’s actually scientific evidence supporting the idea that talking depletes us from the energy needed to get the job done. Because both the fuel from the same source now either you do the talking or you do the job. You can’t definitely do both. And I’m not talking about the communication skills here we all need them, on certain other occasions I’m talking about discussing the task process instead of focusing on the task itself that’s where we lack.
Haven’t we all heard “let the work do the talking” then why don’t we implement that in our own lives? The thing is talking is a great distraction especially if you have an audience to entertain which we all have now thanks to the growing technology and social media platforms. But great work comes from great effort. It is indeed draining and exhausting and we all need a little break but how often does it happen that a break turns into a nap and then a complete waste of time?
2- Find your purpose
At school, the first thing the parents and teachers ask is what you want to be but rarely do they ask what you want to do. Both are relatively similar the only difference is that when you ask the child what they want to be, they address a specific job title, and when you ask what you want to do they address the job they will be doing. Sometimes their idea of a job or a career ends up completely different than what they signed up for.
Okay, this one comes from experience the youthful idealism often fails us when reality hits us hard. When I chose to be a physiotherapist one thing no one told me is that the work I’m going to do involves soft tissue mobilization in simple terms Massage. I hated that word I didn’t sign up to be called a masseuse, that sounds wrong at so many levels. Also, the job involves trivial work like helping patients get out of bed, helping them put their slippers on, etc. The slippers and stuff were very off-putting to a lot of my friends in the early years of our careers.
It was a big step to accept the fact that people will say what they have to say but I can relieve even a single person’s pain through this so-called massage then I am okay. What I didn’t know back then that I do now is that no label can convince me to leave a job I absolutely love. Besides that, it is the most humbling experience in the world to know that somebody will sleep pain-free today. So when choosing careers instead of looking at the grandeur or the glitz and glamour just take your time out and search for their day-to-day life and ask yourself are you willing to live a life like that every day? The answer will be life changing.
3- Become a student
Becoming and staying a student to someone you look up to is also one of the most humbling things in the world. Most accomplished actors, dancers, athletes, singers, doctors, and even martial artists have a teacher they train under. First of all it reduces the illusion that most people have these days that they know everything. It puts you in a spot where you are constantly under the watch of someone you know who knows more than you. Let’s not forget the long hours of instruction that you get and how it shapes you and polishes your skills in the best way possible. The feedback you get is often humiliating, especially in the early years when our egos are in full swing but that very feedback makes us humble in the long run.
4- Leave passion at home
You’d say why is that? Isn’t the world living for passionate people? Well, maybe.
It depends on a few things, first what is the driving force for that passion? Is it that rapid burst of energy we get after watching a motivational video on YouTube or when a friend pumped us with a few shady praises? Passion is a good thing when at home with your loved one but being passionate about your job doesn't always end well. It either drives us towards quick success or falls us into the deep sea of problems we never anticipated.
Have you wondered why so many people bursting with passion end up making absolutely nothing significant in their life? Yes, because they do the same thing and expect different results. Experts say passion is for amateurs, successful people know that passion alone won’t get them anywhere, but continuous dedication and self-discipline in the right direction will.
5- Be the helping hand everybody needs
Suppose you just got a new job or got into a new school, what is the first thing you do? Make friends right? But is it really that simple to make new friends in new environments? It’s not and for socially awkward people it is quite frightening, to be honest.
However, there is a hidden trick that always works like a charm. Helping people in the most discreet way possible. Now, you’d say that won’t help you get noticed. Wrong. Nobody forgets someone who helped you and didn’t ask for anything in return.
Let’s say you are starting an internship at a prestigious place, where you want to work one day. You start your first day brimming with confidence and they ask you to do something so small like fetching a thing from the office or calling the attendant of the patient. You say to yourself I’m wasting my time; I didn’t join this place to be a “slave”. Here’s the thing, you are not a slave. These small tasks are time-consuming if you do them the entire day when you do it for someone even for a short period of time it reduces their burden and helps you get noticed. The trick is simply helping others now will lead you to have them help you in the future in much better ways.
6- Control your feelings at work
The social media rage has convinced us that we can talk back to absolutely anyone, anywhere and anytime, which is just absurd. I’ll tell you why, the world on social media is different from real world.
All those people raging on social media are mostly cowardly as hell. Okay Sorry, it’s just my judgment. The reason is pretty obvious though they are bored and have literally nothing else to do but to give advice to other people.
Let’s address the fact that in life the new and upcoming must endure the abuses of the achieved. That’s the system, that’s how it works but the fun fact these same hardships make you stronger and different from a dozen other people with the same degree in hand. In order to change a system, you first need to make it there.
7- Get out of your own head
This one may be the most common, we’ve been taught the power of manifestation. Everything you desire can be yours if you put your entire energy into it. BULLSH*T. Okay, not all of it is rubbish, dreams, and manifestations do come true and energies do transfer to the universe. But does that mean you can reach success just by thinking about it? NO. You need a practical, logical roadmap to get there, wishful thinking won’t lead to anywhere.
8- Early pride = DEVASTATION
Pride is a dangerous thing they say, it convinces people that they are better than everyone else, some might even hit it next level saying they are better than GOD. Pride is for stupid people who think they are too good to be treated as anything less than a King or Queen. Here’s the truth, it’s a lie, a fraud. If you are genuinely putting in the effort to reach your desired outcome you don't need that. In the early years of my career, that piece of paper that entails our names became a symbol of pride.
But was it given to you only? No, right? It was given to everyone in the class. So, what exactly is it that makes you special? One thing that is common in all successful people is their humility, no matter what they achieve they never forget where they came from. It keeps them grounded.
9- Work your A$$ off
The difference between an amateur and a professional is the amount of time they’ve spent mastering the skill. No matter what the skill, the more time you invest in it or the more you work on it the better you get. It’s that simple but our ego gets in our way. The time we should be spending on actually working on the task is replaced by just talking and boasting about it. Making plans but never implementing them is a vicious cycle of self-sabotage.
It's so easy to get caught up on the “fake it till you make it” but are you really going to make it just by faking it? Just think about it, would you trust any doctor with your life who’s just faking it? In order to make it, you need to set time aside and work on the skill endless times until you think you don’t need to fake it anymore. When will that be? Who knows. One thing is certain you need to sacrifice friends and social life to earn the success you wish for. It’s an investment, the efforts and work put in now will be compensated for later in life with much bigger things.
10- Be humble about everything
Humility is one thing that separates the early pride trade from the genuine successful one. It’s real for a lot of us, some think to strive more and some just stop improving because their ego and pride got in the way. Let me give a very desi example, the hero of Bollywood Shahrukh Khan. He is known for his humility; everybody loves him performing on the big screen, but the true magic happens when someone meets him in real life. Whoever has met him in real life says one thing no matter how many Bollywood or Hollywood stars you meet in a day you won’t forget the time you met Shahrukh Khan.
It's his persona, he makes the whole experience so memorable for the other person that they just never forget. Be like that to everybody you meet in your office or school, let them be the focus of attention and you’ll be the most memorable person in their life.
MY FAVORITE K- DRAMA CHARACTER WITH A STRONG LESSON OF PERSERVERANCE TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS
Na Hee do from Twenty five twenty one
From being the worst player on her team to beating her crush and international gold medalist.
A few lines from the writer of the book “Ego is the enemy”
"When you are just starting out, we can be sure of a few fundamental realities:
1) You’re not nearly as good or as important as you think you are
2) You have an attitude that needs to be readjusted
3) Most of what you think you know or most of what you learned in books or in school is out of date or wrong."
I didn’t use the word ego throughout this whole text a lot because then the whole message would have been shifted from it being a guide to being an argument around EGO. In my personal experience ego made me do terrible things in the early years of my career life which I regret now. What I do appreciate is the fact that I grew out of those beliefs and learned great things in the process. The ego is nice to have, never let it take the driving seat in your life. Treat everyone with respect, swallow your pride, do the trivial work and keep going until you reach your destination.
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