Belief: You will only do something you believe you can do.
How often is this true in our lives? I am constantly trying to correct Julie when she says she “can’t” do something. I tell her, “If you say you can’t, you won’t.”
In our society of quick fixes and instant gratification, there are 3 things we can focus on to achieve something great.
- Hard Work
- This is very rare today. We often associate pain with hard work and for the most part the initial step of hard work is painful. However, when you take a Mary Poppins approach and make a job a game, the pain starts to dissipate. I can tell you that my job as a web developer is much more of a game than a job and people pay me to do it. Trust me, it’s taken some hard work, but I have enjoyed it, even the struggling because I have looked to the outcome and not the circumstances
- Smart Work
- Any time you start something new it’s going to be slow and hard. However, once you are acclimated to the work you are enduring it’s time to start using all the muscles associated including your brain. Take the hard work you have been enduring and start analyzing and improving it. They say “Practice makes perfect”, but they’re wrong. Practice develops habits, not perfection. Perfect is realized when you step outside your comfort zone (or more accurately “familiar zones”). Stepping outside the familiar zone is the learning zone. When you stay in the learning zone, the tide of the familiar zone starts to creep up and soon you are back to the familiar. That’s when it’s time to step into the learning zone again. Continuing the educational process is “smart work.”
- Time
- One of my favorite quotes is, “God grant me patience … right now!” Nothing great comes at the beginning of a worthwhile project. If someone offered you 1 million dollars or a penny that doubled itself every day (1 cent, 2 cents, 4 cents, 8 cents, etc.), which would you take? If you wait till the end of the thirty days you will have accumulated over 5 million dollars. We need to start looking to the long term goal of a project, and not just the immediate circumstances
Achieving something great can happen. Through hard work, smart work, and time commitment, you can begin to fulfill your God-given purpose in life.