How I Meet Obstacles

The other day, I was listening to the audiobook for Three Cups of Tea. I was amazed at how Greg Mortensen reacted when faced with obstacles. Particularly when he was in Pakistan and had his project hijacked to build in other villages, or when his intended beneficiaries decided they wanted to build a bridge instead of a school, he didn't back down. He focused on his end goal over all.

It got me thinking - do I back down at the first obstacle? Do I look for an excuse to not finish or a path to execution?

The walls of the box in "think outside the box" are most often the boundaries that set for ourselves.  If I am willing to do something I don't normally do, but that is ethical and legal, can I finish?

The Right to NOT Work Hard

At what point to do earn the right to NOT work hard? Is it when your assets are providing enough income to support you? Or maybe when your children are grown and no longer need your example?

We were built to work hard. You might feel you've earned the right to relax, but as soon as you do you start digging your own grave.

Keep working hard even when you don't have to.

Do Things Others Don't

There aren't a lot of things that people won't do when the going gets tough, when they are asked, or others are doing it. Will you stay late tonight to get the report finished? Absolutely. Will you take on additional work when there are layoffs in your group? Certainly.

But do you do those things when you don't have to? Do you stay late to finish a project to turn it in a week early? Do you come to the meeting 5 minutes early when everyone else arrives 5 minutes late?

The trick isn't doing things other people will do when asked or necessary. The trick is surprising people with what you do every day.

What can you surprise people with today?

Risk a little

I know there are shortcuts out there, some of which are real shortcuts. Shortcuts have gotten a bad reputation lately - they're "cutting corners", "outsourcing", or looking for the easy way.

However, there are real shortcuts out there that save time and money, and just take a little bit of research and risk to take advantage of. A simple keyboard command that is used over and over instead of a mouse click saves seconds, possibly minutes every single day.

Challenge: Next time you start doing a repetitive daily task, take a few minutes to see if there is a shortcut to doing it - and the shortest cut of all is finding out the task is no longer necessary!

"Where do you put the tired?"

I'm reading a fascinating book - Linchpin by Seth Godin. On page 65, he references long distance runners and men building railroads and asks, "Where do you put the tired?"

The ability to work through the fatigue, or as Seth also notes, the fear, is a key to becoming a hard worker. But what can you do to keep going and push through the fatigue? What separates those who stop from those who don't?

The Challenge: Go a little farther today than you did yesterday. Not much farther. Run an extra 25 feet. Make an extra phone call. Pick up a piece of clothing you would have left on the floor.

The breakthrough comes after a thousand tiny hits.

Don't Overestimate the Size of the Job

Tip #1 on hard work:

Don't overestimate the size of a task as an excuse to put it off.

This morning I had 45 open minutes. Rather than spend it reading (my usual way to burn off extra minutes), I chose an important task on my list and applied myself to it. It meant I had to change clothes and shower faster than I usually do, but I got closer to finishing our bookshelves.

The Challenge: Fit something unusual into my schedule that I would have put off, such as fixing something in the house before I leave for work or making an overdue phone call before dinner.

Hard Work Defined

I've heard over and over again that the secret to success is hard work and luck. Or intelligence and perspiration. Or 1% ingenuity and 99% tenacity.

Work hard and you'll succeed!

Early to bed and early to rise...

But what is it?

Is it holding a job that makes you leave before your family wakes up and come home in time to put them to bed? Is it spending 20 years in school sacrificing so you can relax and let the money roll in for the rest of your career? If you don't have to work anymore for a paycheck, is there another spiritual benefit to work?

So, I've set up this blog to track my research to try to answer these questions myself and to either celebrate the nobility of hard work or debunk the myth.