Should You Work Hard or Smart?

This is one of the most debatable topics: Work Hard VS Work Smart. So, if you want to achieve greater success in life, do you need to work hard, or do you need to work smart?

To some, working hard is useless because if you work hard on the wrong thing, you’re going to waste a lot of your effort and time.

Before you come to a conclusion, I would like you to watch this video below:

If you look at the cyclist, he’s working smart.

He knows that when going downhill, he doesn’t need to paddle to go faster. He just needs to lie his body straight on the bike and let the principle of physics to work for him.

When his boy is in the horizontal straight-line position, he experiences the least resistance from the wind.

Plus, when he’s going downhill, gravity will work for him by accelerating his speed with less resistance.

You can see that other cyclists are paddling as hard as they can, but they can’t catch up to the cyclist who works smart.

So, does that mean that we should all focus on working smart rather than working hard?

You Can’t Be Successful If You Just Work Smart

Take a look at the comment sections of the video on YouTube and you will discover that a lot of people buy into the idea that working smart is the way after watching the video.

Now, I’m not saying that you should be working smart, in fact, you have to work smart to beat your competitors as the cyclist did.

However, you can’t work smart without working hard.

Working smart alone is not going to help you. You need both. You must first work hard before you work smart.

The problem with most people is that after watching this kind of video, they believe that working smart is the only way to succeed.

As a result, they buy into the idea of looking for magic pills or shortcuts to success.

This is not going to work.

And this is also why a lot of people got scammed into buying immediate success results.

When they want to make money online, instead of starting a proper and solid internet business, they buy courses that promise them to create immediate wealth without having to work hard.

Of course, those get-rich-quick programs will not work.

And after struggling to create real results, these people will eventually quit and think that online marketing is not going to work.

Don’t let this happen to you.

Work Hard is Compulsory to Achieve Greater Success

Here’s what I believe: Hard work is compulsory to achieve extraordinary success in life.

You can’t skip the step and go to the destination straight. You need to go through the process. You need to endure the journey to get there.

Think about it, achieving success is not about getting the result. It is about raising your standards and building your skills.

If you want to make money, say you want to have money to buy your dream car that costs $100,000. But you are working in a job that pays you only $3,000 a month, so you have to find other ways to earn more.

Now, what if I give you the money straight so you can buy the car? Good, right?

But if you think about it, what happens after you get the car? You will get back to the same problem. You are still just earning $3,000 a month.

The only difference is that you own a better car and you drive it to work.

The key is to work on improving your skills.

You want to raise your earning abilities and increase your knowledge about making more money and managing it.

This is where a lot of people get it wrong.

They tend to focus on the result rather than on improving their skills and standards.

Once you have built your skills and increase your earning ability, say instead of earning just $3,000 a month, you start a side business and learn how to build an additional income stream of $10,000 a month, you now can afford your dream car.

This is what makes all the difference. You become someone better and someone worthy of your goal.

I strongly suggest you read my other article here to know what are the things you must clarify before you work hard:

==> Stop Working Hard Unless You Fulfill These 5 Principles

Working Smart Will Only Work When You Work Hard

Therefore, don’t focus on just working smart. Stop searching for the magic pills or the shortcut to getting quick results.

The key is to learn to build your skills, improve your levels, and raise your standards.

When you become the person worthy of success, success will automatically come to you.

Working smart can only work if you are willing to do the work.

Meaning, you must first be working hard only then you will discover the secret or the shortcut of getting better results.

Looking back at the cyclist from the video above, you will notice that he wasn’t just an ordinary cyclist. He is a professional cyclist.

Which means that he has paid his due and work hard to get there.

This is why there is a phrase that says…

“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

So, if you want to get lucky and achieve greater success in life, work harder.

The harder you work, the more likely you are to discover the smart way to produce even more success.

Now, should you work hard or work smart?

You know the answer. You need to work hard and smart.

Asking this question is like do you prefer your left hand or your right hand?

Perhaps, if you use both hands, you can produce more success.