It takes hard work, no matter what you do in life to be successful. The day is long gone getting things handed to us on a plate. With so much competition out there whatever our area of expertise, we have to work hard consistently, effectively with efficiency and discipline. Whether you are preparing for Junior Certificate, Leaving Certificate, Third Level examinations, it takes hard work to ‘learn the stuff’, so that you are almost looking forward to them. How do you develop an attitude of hard work? Many of us just have it, others have some of it, while others don’t have it all.
It’s in our genes:
We all know people who just have it; the brains, the memory and / or the right work ethic to get on in life and make things happen for themselves. For the rest of us everything we need to do or achieve to make things happen or us, takes so much time and energy. We need to accept this and know that working hard with a hardworking attitude in everything we do, will take us such a long way in our academia and careers.
We benchmark of people around us:
Following on from the last paragraph, who are the people that you admire for their work ethic and attitude where most times than not, they deliver and achieve. Observe them over a time period. Can you learn from them? Can you use some of their techniques? Can you achieve like they do?
We all should have role models:
People who we look up to, admire, that we can benefit from. Some of these role models can cover all of our life or some can cover certain specific parts of it. Who can you role model off to help you achieve?
We set goals with target dates:
It can be very difficult to achieve something if we don’t know what we want. You need to know or have some idea of your CAO Points Target, your ideal job / career, even your own personal wants in life. Visualize what you want, put it on paper in the form of a goal. Set a time of completion against them. Make sure it is clear and try to see it or read the goal everyday.
We manage our time:
Time management is what it is all about these days. With so much distraction in the world around us, so much to be done, so much that we could do, so much that we have to do; how you manage your time is critical to staying ahead of the competition as you strive to achieve your goals. Whatever way you want to do it i.e. on paper or on your smartphone, start managing your time, start managing your life and give up wasting time.
We reward ourselves afterwards:
When we have done all of the above and achieved a goal, we need to have the discipline to acknowledge it, celebrate it and reward ourselves…this is the best part…do this more often and self-motivated hard work will come more naturally…
