Why Hard Work Is NOT Enough — 3 Things You Need To Know Before You Work Hard

We’ve been brainwashed. We’ve been programmed since a very young age to believe that hard work is everything.

And the answer is a big NO.

No, hard work is not enough. Hard work alone isn’t going to guarantee your success.

If working hard is the key to success, those who are holding 2 jobs should be a billionaire by now.

If hard work alone is enough, then most people who work 12 or even 16 hours a day should end up making it.

The truth is that hard work alone isn’t enough.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that hard work isn’t important. I’m saying hard work alone isn’t the answer.

Yes, you should work hard. And yes, working hard does contribute to your success, but it is NOT the only key to success.

Have you heard about this phrase before…?

“Your direction is more important than your speed.”

This is why I’m here to share with you why hard work isn’t enough.

Before you jump in and hustle 24 hours as Elon Musk did, you need to understand these 3 things…

1. The Right Direction

You don’t want to be running to the west if you want to chase the sunrise. Running to the west isn’t going to help if your goal is to catch the sunrise.

No matter how fast you run, you’ll only end up getting to the wrong place and fail.

The first thing you need to do is to make sure your direction is correct. As the late Stephen Covey famously said:

“If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”

You want to make sure your ladder is leaning against the right wall. You don’t want to spend all your time and energy, climbing up the ladder, and only to discover that you have climbed the wrong wall.

If your direction is wrong, you will NOT only waste your effort and energy to get to the wrong place but also wasting your time, even your life.

Imagine spending your entire life working on the wrong project or job. After spending 20 years doing the wrong thing, only you discover that you’ve spent half of your life working on things that you hate. How does that feel?

Thus, make sure your direction is correct. Make sure what you are pursuing is worth your time and effort.

2. The Right Process

The second thing you need to understand before you hustle all your way is to make sure you are following the right process.

In other words, you want to make sure what you do is going to get you the results. Your strategy must be effective.

I believe you’ve heard about the Pareto’s Rule or the 80/20 Principle where you want to spend most of your time working on the 20% work that gives 80% results.

You don’t want to be doing the wrong thing that produces only minimal impact. You want to focus on doing the high-impact work that gives you the most results.

This is the difference between a successful entrepreneur and someone who is struggling to make ends meet.

Successful entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos understand that there is only so much time and energy in their days. Therefore, they need to leverage and get help from others.

They are able to make it big because they build a business, a system, a process, a team, an organization, and they leverage on others to help them get the results they want.

This is why you should focus on doing the right thing that gets you the most result.

You want to make sure your hard work is going to be worth it and generates the result you desire.

Hence, make sure your strategy — your process — is correct. Do what is right and model after what successful people are doing, and you too will become successful.

That’s how you make sure your hard work will not go down the drain.

3. The Right Purpose

Why do you want to work hard? If you think about it, extremely successful people are NOT doing it for the money or the physical possessions, they are doing it to fulfill their internal desires.

Warren Buffett is a billionaire and at this writing, he’s already 90 years old. But still, he continues to study the economy, businesses, read reports and invest in the stock market. Why?

If he wants to, he could retire extremely comfortably and enjoy the rest of his life. But he didn’t.

The answer is this — he enjoys what he does. He enjoys investing and talking about the market and the economy. And that’s why he chooses to continue to do what he’s passionate about — investing.

Warren Buffett isn’t doing it for the money, he’s doing it to fulfill his internal desires. The same goes for people like Richard Branson and Elon Musk.

In 2002, when eBay acquired PayPal, Elon Musk received $100 million from the deal and he owned 11.7% of PayPal shares, making him the biggest shareholder.

By then, he could just retire and enjoy his life. But instead, he has a deeper desire to do something big. He announced to the world that he is going to revolutionize the transportation industry by introducing electric vehicles.

And so, he started Tesla. Not only that, but he also has a dream to colonize Mars too. He wanted to make interstellar travel possible. Hence, he started SpaceX.

Both companies he started, Tesla and SpaceX, almost went bankrupt. Elon could have just quit and enjoy his wealth, but he chose to push on and hustle until he makes it.

That’s working for the right purpose. He’s working hard for the right purpose, but are you?

Many people were sold to the idea of working hard. And as I have said, hard work is important, but you don’t want to be working hard blindly.

You want to make sure you work hard on the right purpose before you pour everything into it.

These are the 3 things you must understand before you commit 100% and work hard for the things that you want.

Remember, hard work alone isn’t enough. You need to make sure you are working in the right direction, using the right process, and for the right purpose.

Discover more from the author of this article, Shawn Lim: Stop Working Hard Unless You Fulfill These 5 Principles