Whether you hate or love your job, how hard do you work? If you can honestly say that you put in a good day’s work, then this challenge is NOT for you. You already know the value of a hard day’s work. But, if you know that you are not living up to your potential at work, this challenge will benefit you in a few ways that could impact the rest of your life positively. Following are a few of the benefits you can expect from taking this challenge.
5 Benefits Of The Work Hard Challenge
1. Realize Your Potential
You don’t know what you are capable of until you push yourself to work hard. The harder you work, the more you realize how much you are capable of doing, how well you are capable of doing it, and how good you are at overcoming obstacles and setbacks.
Self-improvement is a natural side effect of working hard.
Your confidence increases.
Your talent increased.
Your abilities increase.
And, you become more productive in all areas of your life. Trust me, the ‘work hard’ bug infects your health, relationships, home life, and hobbies in a good way. You start to take on a mentality of ‘getting things done’ and ‘tackling things that matter’, so you stop putting off doing things that will make a difference in your life.
A friend of mine works as a freelance writer, and he found that putting more effort into his work helped him to put more effort into his relationship. Working hard felt good and became a way of life for him. He stopped putting off the work needed to fix his relationship and he started spending that quality time with his wife that was the key to fixing their relationship.
2. Get Inspired To Become And Do More
This is a HUGE benefit that comes from working hard. Once you start to work hard, you accomplish more. And once you realize how much you can accomplish, you start to set new goals. You start to tackle new plans of action that help you get more out of life.
This is a great benefit for all those self-employed people out there, but it’s also a great benefit for anyone who works at a job that they don’t enjoy. The harder you work, and the more you realize your potential, the more willing you will be to develop new skills and look for another job that gives you more satisfaction.
3. Feel Accomplished At The End Of The Day
There is a huge difference between going to bed feeling like you worked hard and accomplished a lot and going to bed feeling like you didn’t accomplish much at all. You have fewer complaints about yourself and the day. Your confidence in yourself increases. And you feel like your day was spent well – doing things that matter in your life.
The other thing is that you find balance in your life. When you work hard, you can come home (or stop working if you work from home) and enjoy your family life, leisure time, and hobbies more. When you don’t work very hard, and you enjoy all those other things too much, you can feel out of balance.
Yes, it’s nice to have leisure time, but work gives the satisfaction that can’t be found through anything else in life. It’s a way for us to contribute positively to other people and the world, and contribution feels good. And, of course, it’s a way to earn money so that we can enjoy all those other things in life freely.
4. Build Character
How do other people see you right now? Lazy? Weak? Scatterbrained? Or maybe something a little more flattering? I guarantee that being someone who works hard will help you build a different type of character than you have now. The type of character that can be built from hard work is the type of character that will draw people to you and help you change your life.
- You will build strength both in mind and body.
- You will build focus as you work on working hard instead of hardly working.
- You will build integrity as you stick to your code of working hard.
- You will become more cooperative as you find ways to work with people to reach your goals.
If you want people to respect you more (and if you want to respect yourself more), then hard work can help you become the type of person that deserves respect.
5. Change Your Life
You can be as talented as you want, but if you don’t work hard you can’t accomplish things you want to accomplish.
Talent doesn’t equal success. Action equals success. Therefore, if you are not working hard right now, then you will change your success level by working harder.
When you work hard, you get:
- More opportunities.
- More money.
- More perspective.
- More results.
- More chances to see what works and what doesn’t work.
All of those things help you create new and exciting outcomes for yourself that you simply can’t get by hardly working. In other words, you can change your life by working hard.
Don’t Be Afraid Of Working Hard
You may be worried that you are going to give up your freedom by working too hard, but that’s not the case. Working hard is not about spending 24 hours a day working. It’s about putting in real effort during your work hours.
As we discussed, working hard has a ton of benefits, and that’s what you should focus on. By working hard, you are gaining so many things, and that’s why this challenge is so important.
The Concept Of Working Smarter Not Harder
I totally agree that it’s important to work smart, but I still think you need to work hard. As successful people will tell you, there is no substitute for hard work. Even the most talented or fortunate people know that hard work is their ticket to their dreams.
Working smart is about tackling the right problems and fixing them, making things more efficient, building systems, and working towards realistic goals. But in the beginning, someone who doesn’t work hard may find loopholes to try to do as little work as possible. And usually, those loopholes are not about working smarter at all. That’s why it’s better to experience what hard work feels like, and then find ways to work smarter.
Let’s put it this way: If you are not used to working hard, then you are not going to work smart. Building the habit of working hard allows you to get into a routine of pushing through obstacles and overcoming setbacks. Working hard allows you to see where the problems are and then fix them. It gives you the energy, knowledge, and drive to work smarter.
But, you still should want to work smarter. So, as you start to work harder during this challenge, think about how you can work smarter. How can you get more done in less time? How can you get things done more efficiently? How can you get things done better?
Make Hard Work As Fun As Possible
When you are having fun, hard work feels more like a treat than a job. But we are not all so lucky to be working at a place or a job that is fun. So, what do you do? Make working hard fun. Make work into a game.
For instance, you can compete with yourself day by day in your work. You can do a little bit more each day or see how much you can get done in 8 hours. Or, you can compete against someone else. You can make a bet with someone about who can accomplish more during the week.
A friend of mine used to work as a housekeeper at a hospital. She hated the job with a passion until she made it into a game. She challenged herself to get her assigned area as clean as possible. Her focus was doing her job really well, and when she started to come to work with that challenge – that she viewed as a game – she enjoyed work much more. It felt good to clean. It felt like she was accomplishing something. It felt like her hard work was doing more than just earning her a paycheck. Work became fun and rewarding, and that’s what hard work is all about.
The Work Hard Challenge: 1 Month Of Hard Work
The challenge is simple: When you are scheduled to work, work hard. Make the most of your time at work and do as much as possible. If you are someone who can get your job done in a matter of hours, then find more work to do, extend the amount of detail you put into your work, or help someone else with their work.
If you are someone who can get your job done in a matter of hours, then find more work to do, extend the amount of detail you put into your work, or help someone else with their work.
Your mission is to work hard for 1 month and see what results from it.
Each workday, do the following things.
- Get excited about your day at work. This will help you motivate yourself to get to work and work hard. This means no negative talk about work, but, instead, positive talk about how great work will be. Find the benefits of your work. For instance, work will help you earn money, give you something positive to do for the day, allow you to help someone else out, or give you the opportunity to make the day a little brighter for other people. Focus on whatever benefits you find and repeat them to yourself as you get ready to go to work.
- Avoid the slackers. This may mean you need to stop hanging out with the slacker who does everything in their power to avoid work. They will bring you down and cause you to give up on your work hard challenge before you even begin. That’s part of their ‘job’. Yes, by doing this you may offend Nancy who comes to talk to you about nothing for an hour when you tell her that you really need to focus on your work, but that’s okay. She’ll find another way to slack off. Believe me. And her opinion about you working too hard won’t affect you when you experience the benefits of a hard day’s work. She may annoy you as you watch her do nothing all day. But she won’t affect how good it feels to work hard. You may also want to read How To Deal With The Top 5 Difficult Co-Workers.
- Create a structure: A plan for the day will help you work as hard as possible. Without a plan, you will spend more time trying to decide what to do than anything. So, as soon as you get to work, create your to-do list or your outline for the day and then get busy doing it. As things pop in your day, add them to your list. Add the most important ones in quickly and the less important ones to the end of your list. Just make sure you are constantly focused on a task and check it off before you move on to the next one. That will ensure your energy and focus is in one place and it will allow you to work harder and get things done quicker.
- Remind yourself why you are doing this: There is a reason you want to do this challenge. Keep that reason in your mind as you go through your day and get the urge to slack off and do nothing. Your ‘why’ may be working towards a better job/life, making more money, proving to yourself that you can do put in a hard day’s work, or anything else. Whatever reason got you started on this journey, focusing on it will help you stay motivated to stick with it.
- Enjoy yourself: As we discussed, make a game out of your work. Enjoy yourself as you move through your day. Smile, feel grateful for your job, feel grateful for your motivation to do your job well, pat yourself on the back, and do other things that make hard work a positive thing, not a negative thing. Do NOT do things that make you miserable, like dwell on what you haven’t accomplished yet, or on the negatives of the job. Do NOT compare yourself to other people. Do NOT let a lack of results get you down. Do NOT let setbacks cause you to give up. In fact, anytime you encounter a setback, make a game out of it. Find a way to turn your problem into a project that allows you to keep working hard and come out the other end successful.
- Give yourself a bribe: Let’s face it, we all do more when a bribe is involved. The biggest bribe is finishing this challenge and experience the results of hard work for yourself. But that may not cut it on a Wednesday when all you want to do is go take a nap. So, bribe yourself with someone positive. For instance, tell yourself that if you work hard for the next 8 hours, you can go home and [fill this in with someone that excites you].
- Give yourself a punishment. Pain can be a greater motivator than pleasure. When you think the pain of not working hard will be more painful than just doing it, you will work hard to avoid the pain. So, if the bribe doesn’t work, you may also want to include punishments for yourself. For instance, tell yourself that if you don’t work hard for the next 8 hours, then you are not going to allow yourself to watch your favorite show. The pain of not being able to watch your show should cause you to focus on your work and get things done.
You may find that hard work quickly becomes a habit and you don’t need to do any of the above things to stay committed to the challenge. Working hard may feel so good to you that you naturally work hard for the rest of the month and beyond. But, if it doesn’t become a quick habit, that’s okay. Use the above tips to keep yourself motivated to finish the challenge and experience the results.
