In the middle of work, a simple yet interesting question came to my mind as my colleague started a discussion about quality or work. “Which one is more important, working hard or working efficiently?” Did you ever ask yourself the same question? I am a hard-working person, so I definitely disagree if the latter should go first. To reach your fullest potential, you need right attitude. It’s called hard work.
Right attitude leads to success
Let me show you how the attitude can lead to success. Some people feel crap waking up early in the morning. While I am definitely an early riser. I feel very energised to start working at home for a bit in the mornings before heading to the office. And surprisingly, starting the day right makes my level of productivity during office hours even higher. Another secret is that I take exercise breaks at work simply by stretching my muscles and taking a walk in the office. Like other people normally do, I sometimes check social media as well for a few minutes then I continue to finish my work. What makes it even unbelievable is that I still spare some time to work before going to bed.
Putting long hours into work has now become my habit, an attitude that I believe to be very fundamental to reach my desired goals. Through these consistent long working hours, I learn how to improve the quality of work. This learning process is part of knowing how to be efficient to get things done. But if you start with being efficient, you just focus on doing everything as quick as possible. You will end up overlooking intense hard work and meaningful processes, which actually can improve your potential. I would say people who are not taking the attitude of hard work into account are basically lazy.
In achieving professional goals, smart work is obviously an important element here. Why many people have worked very hard but only a few of them become successful is partly because they fail to manage time and work. In my opinion, working hard should be put first then efficiency comes after. In the end, people want to be able to combine both hard work and smart work. However, once again, focusing on effort and time by working hard can help develop efficiency step by step.
I believe that geniuses are not born, they are made. Even the greatest minds and most successful people in this planet have had their long-term commitment and keep on persisting in reaching their goals. And I would add one more facet in this discussion, it is networking. Remember that network is an investment. It is such a powerful addition to play the game in this very competitive professional life.
Understand your failure
Why are we discussing this? Because having the knowledge will help you improve the quality you already have. And if you are IT people who have a team, understanding whether the individuals on your team are hard or efficient workers will help you manage them effectively. I wouldn’t be where I am today in my London office, without having insane work ethics. As my mentor and great friend said “Marcin, you understand failure, that’s why you are successful, that’s why you’re growing.