“But it just doesn’t feel right! I don’t feel inspired! The stars aren’t aligned!”
Lately I’ve observed a lot of people who justify a lack of progress in some area of their life with excuses to the effect that they don’t feel excited, inspired or motivated.
A lot of self-help authors profess the idea that you shouldn’t do things that you don’t feel inspired, excited or passionate about. You should thoroughly enjoy what you do, and it should flow naturally with ease.
But many people who latch onto this advice seem to be looking for an easy way out of life. They don’t want the job that requires them to work long hours and deal with difficult people. They don’t want to finish their school program because it’s demanding, or they quit clubs or activities because they don’t get along with one or more members.
It bothers me that self-help material often makes us think that working hard and toughing things out is stupid. I wonder if, in an effort to be contrary to old-fashioned advice, self-help authors have thrown too much out the window.
We become fixated on those self-help authors who say “I love the work I do. I get up every morning feeling excited about it. You should feel the same way about your work, or it’s not worth doing.”
Many who follow this advice become fixated on divesting or simply refusing to any kind of work that they don’t love, or that doesn’t come easily or naturally to them.
Yet, behind nearly every successful person that we admire, even modern self-help gurus who profess to working only two hours a week, is someone who spent many hours working hard, paying their dues, rising up the ranks. And more often than not, at some kind of business or job that is unrelated to their “passion”.
Despite the hardships, they generally don’t regret the path they took. The experience and wisdom from years of hard work and struggle have given them the strength, confidence and credibility to be who they are today.
They didn’t shortcut to success. They didn’t spend every moment (or perhaps even most moments) of their journey feeling excited and inspired. Their success looks easy to us because we focus on who and where they are now, not the path they took to get there.
But there are people who try to adopt the attitude and outlook of highly successful people without the willingness to work hard and pay their dues. They figure they can leapfrog their way to success by hacking the rules.
While highly successful people are good role models, we can’t emulate all their behaviors because they’re in a different position. Someone who’s already established a steady stream of passive income has options that a college student living on ramen noodles doesn’t have.
You can hack your life all you want, but there’s no way to avoid the challenges that come along with being human. There are no shortcuts to success, and if you’re not busting your ass, you’re not headed anywhere worthwhile.
Self-help and technology have given us tools to succeed in ways that weren’t possible just 10 years ago. In the old days, almost everyone had to get a job and slug it out till Freedom 55.
But these days, technology lets us work from home, start our own solo businesses and thrive. Yet some things don’t change. You still need to provide value. You still need to work hard. And you still have to do things you don’t want to do.
One of my mentors once told me that while he didn’t enjoy writing ad copy because it made him feel insincere. But he puts aside the icky feelings and does it anyways because it brings in the sales. And those sales pay the bills and enable him to keep doing the work that he enjoys.
We all have to rise from the ground up. A sycamore tree doesn’t become a 300-foot giant overnight. You don’t become an overnight success in your field when you get started. It could take years before you get good at something. It’s going to be a struggle. You’re probably going to do many things that you prefer not to have to, such as working an ordinary job to support yourself while you build momentum in a new career.
The self-help movement has done us a great favor by helping us recognize what we don’t like and disconnecting from it. But the act of not accepting what you doesn’t by itself empower you to replace it with something better. For example, quitting your job does nothing to ensure you’ll be successful in your own business. It can create as many problems as it solves, if not more.
Self-help could do us an even greater favor by reminding us that the path to success (at anything) involves hard work, discipline, focus, persistence, and inevitable failure. Some parts will feel icky and sticky and push us deep into discomfort.
At the end of the day, we admire highly successful people because they have successfully fought uphill battles and conquered many challenges that frustrate ordinary people. It’s up to us to do the same if we want to join their ranks.
Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.
- Theodore I. Rubin
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve seen a lot of people like that, too. Although I don’t believe in hard work, I believe that facing your fears is part of every path with a heart.
And facing your fears is almost never something we feel like doing! But that doesn’t mean we don’t have to do it!
And if you generally don’t feel passionate, inspired, motivated it’s your job to find out what can make you feel passionate, inspired and motivated and integrate this into your life. And no, the answer for your inspiration won’t fall from the sky and hit you on the head. Unless you *do* something, you will always stay where you are: un-passionate, un-inspired and un-motivated.
“Although I don’t believe in hard work”… really? How do you get anything done?
Alex,
Your perspective is awesome. You keep it real and everyone needs to be reading this stuff. I like how you write for “one reader” and the tone is super conversational.
I would like to say that there are some people who manage to become overnight successes, but those people are certainly the exception. I personally would not like to become an overnight “success” because that takes away all the fun of the journey. As long as I’m moving forward toward creating what I want to create down here, I’m a success in my eyes.
Wanted to draw your attention to a typo also: “But the act of not accepting what you doesn’t by itself empower you to replace it with something better.”
Think you left a word out.
Thanks for writing this article.
Hey Rahul! Yeah, I think overnight successes often have some prior experience, skills, or a gift. And often it’s not as overnight as it looks.
Thanks for the notice about the typo – gonna fix it now
Wonderful article Alex.
I learnt this lesson the hard way. PD books give you a temporarily a high boost of motivation but its seldom matched with the consistent discipline and perseverance that is required.
Not hard work but consistent and focused work yields results.
Einstein quote nicely summarizes the essence
” Not everything that counts can be counted,
and not everything that can be counted counts.”
To repeat what was said above – it’s not so much “hard work” that counts, but *smart*, focused, concentrated effort. 20/80 Pareto principle still applies.
However what many forget, is that there are no absolute truth on this Earth and every piece of advice/direction is context-dependent. “On the one hand”, “on the other hand”. What works for an expert rarely works for a beginner and what works for a fully functional beginner might not work for a beginner with some dysfunction.
I’m mostly acting on what I’m inspired and motivated to do in the moment. That’s *easy work* because it’s like going with the flow.
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