Hard work a stepping stone to success
Arvind Sharma

Deciding what you want to do or what you want to be is the first step in making a success of your job and also your life. The beginning of making the life you aim at is deciding what you eventually want to be. A beginning of any journey deciding first and foremost where you want to go. The beginning of making the life you aim at is deciding what you eventually want to be.

The one indispensable pre-requisite is the will concentrated on a single goal. You have acquired the knowledge, you have the ideas. You have the ability to express yourself effectively and forcefully. You have also built up the necessary organisation for implementing your ideas. You have also seen to it that your character is strong and that your personal appearance is pleasing and charming. Now you have to consider the next sensible course. Having chosen your job and having decided where you want to go and having marked your route. You must get out on the road. Remember the longest journey begins with the first step.

A first step perhaps is the difficult step, but it sets you on the voyage and leads towards your goal. Success is not a matter of luck or genius, it depends on adequate preparation and indomitable determination. There is always a battle to fight before victory is won. Unfortunately, too many think that they must have the victory before the battle.. Dictionary is perhaps the only place where success comes before work. If the power to do hard work is not a talent, it is perhaps the best possible substitute for it.

Great achievements invariably require long, tortuous and bitter experiences. One has to resist ruthless persecution — physically and mentally — to have mastery over oneself. One must rise above disappointments, neglect and setbacks. Your aspirations may be fame or glory but the path is steep and high. Anything worth achieving can be achieved only by efforts, industry and sacrifice. Mere wishing and fretting cannot buy us health, wealth, and happiness. He only wins who dares the hero’s march. We have to tread the mountain’s base before we can reach the summit.

Application and hardwork are, therefore, indispensable to success. If you are lazy and unwilling to exert yourself, all your gifts and talents will prove to be a great waste. Your knowledge, your eloquence, your great organisation and your abundant resources will prove to be of no avail if you cannot work. We have an initial dislike for exertion. This inertia has to be overcome by sheer willpower. The first step is, therefore, difficult, but once started you will be able to march ahead without any difficulty. The way to get started is to start. Once you are on the way, the job is already half done. We human beings can be compared to automobiles. We start in a low gear but once get warmed up, we quickly and easily step through the top gear. The two little words, which will stand you in good stead, are, therefore "start now".

You can overcome inertia by self-discipline. Self-discipline is self-management. Self-discipline develops good habits and habits make you perform the most difficult tasks in an effortless manner. Suppose you decide to get up at five in the morning and do physical exercises for half an hour each day. For a few days in the beginning you have to exercise utmost willpower to get up in time and carry out the exercises fighting against the temptation to switch off the alarm and continue with the sleep. But after you are persistent with getting up in the morning and performing your exercises for a fortnight or so, you will find yourself that you can never remain in bed after five in the morning. Development of good working habits through self-discipline will, thus, rid you of one annoying detail after another in this matter. In the beginning we make our habits. In the end our habits make us. One can handle a hundred details of a job by rigidly sticking to a disciplined schedule You are perplexed when you learn to drive a car or pilot an aircraft in the beginning. Once you have mastered these, you will be able to drive along or fly past without even thinking what you are doing. You must, therefore, discipline yourself to work hard, to put in the effort automatically.

All successful men, all people who have become celebrated leaders, have toiled hard and put in enormous amount of work. It is the application, which has eventually crowned them with success. They did all that was expected of them and in addition some extra work. They did as much as anybody else in the same line or the same business and then some extra work. "I never did anything by accident nor did any of my inventions come by accident," said Thomas Edison, "they came by hard work." You should remember that the climb to the top is to walk up and not a walk-over. There are no elevators or helicopters in the "house of accomplishment" There are only stairs which will take you from one floor to the next. You have perforce to walk up the stairs one by one. If you stop climbing or working, you are likely to slip down.

You have to work hard, burn midnight oil, miss a bit of your sleep and forego a bit of your leisure, if you want to attain a goal well in time. You have to pay attention to both and both are equally important. You may be a genius and the quality of work turned out by you might be top-class and yet if you do not work in a systematic, thorough and methodical manner and turn out the required quantity or amount of work in `disciplined fashion, you will find yourself missing your goal. In fact, genius has been in many cases the chief obstacle for success because it tends to give over-confidence and promotes laziness. If you work by fits and starts, you will miss out many essentials. To win the battle you have to advance surely and steadily.

It is what you do now and here that ultimately counts. You should never mind yesterday and tomorrow. You must do today’s work today. If you desire success, if you are keen to lead, you have to work hard. If you want more success, if you wish to become a great leader, you have to put in greater amount of work. It is "by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn bread".