The purpose in the stretching and the value of hard work.
A lot of motivational speakers get under fire for their words a lot of times because people try them out and realise that mere words, no matter how inspiring, are not enough to help them achieve good results. There is practice and consistency and applying character and failing and falling and getting up to continue. Those are the hard parts and without them, the words would mean nothing. As much as they may catch a lot of flak for their words, we need sometimes need them to help us get things done. I promise you I’m not towing the aspire to perspire path. I just want to tell you a few things, stay with me.
The past few months have been crazy for me. As a young adult trying to stay grounded, it’s been a shocking realisation that I have to work hard to match my ambition. I have always believed in the value of hard work but I just never really understood exactly how it plays out in the big field of success.
I am only beginning to learn that the only way to win is to stay consistent. It’s hard and I am yet to reach the point where I can boldly say it is because of it that I have climbed ladders and broken glass ceilings, but I know one thing, every time I take a big difficult step and lose momentum, I go back to ground zero and have to work my way up again. So maybe consistency is not doing big difficult things everyday. That tends to wear one out really quickly. Maybe it’s doing a million tiny things here and there and doing them daily.
Everyday, tiny decisions like deciding whether or not to put the phone down or turn off the t.v at bedtime to be able to get up early the next day or saying no to that person’s offer to visit or ignoring the lack of motivation to do tasks and doing them anyway get summed up to give us results in the long run, whether good or bad. I once watched a Tedx video on how huge goals can be broken down into minute actionable decisions that will build up into laudable achievements. This approach however requires a ton of showing up and consistency and mental strength before you can reach the other side. It gets even more interesting because there’s no way to just get up one day and become consistent. I’m a recovering procrastinator and it is hard to unlearn comfort. This is why I like the concept of the ‘power of yet’.
Last week, I attended a meeting where I learned about what it means to have a growth mindset that allows you to trust the process and engage the ‘yet’. Carol Dweck, a renowned psychologist and bestselling author, spoke about how belief in ‘yet’ helps build resilience and tenacity and confidence in one’s abilities. It’s really empowering to know that I can grow out of bad habits into good ones or learn new things if I just told myself that there is no limit to what I can do and I just need to stretch myself a bit more and change my methods. And even when it doesn’t look like I’m there, I can be assured that I just haven’t reached it yet. That way, I can seek ways to improve by minimal yet significant margins without tiring myself out because the power of yet says that I can do and be anything by taking one step at a time without ruling out the possibility of achieving- I just haven’t reached there yet. How amazing is that?
There are days when I wake up upset at my lack of discipline and resilience and reapply myself to work. On those days, I remind myself that laziness is a detestable trait and I need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
There’s a lot of good living that goes on around us but it’s easier to fantasize about the big dreams than it is to put in work. Nothing good comes easy. It will always take a measure of effort. Award winning platforms, agencies, professionals, and record shattering individuals built work ethics that molded the necessary character for achieving. Life is more than the next best test score or grade, it is about building sustainable habits that prepare you for the dreams you so desperately want to see come true. So friend(insert a note to self as well), get on with it, crush that to-do, be judicious with what you have and pray hard. Do not skip the process and it will amount to something for sure.
Give yourself to more. The only way to test your capability is by extending yourself and stretching to do more. Stretch to encourage yourself because when you realise how much you can take on, there will be no limit to what you will give yourself to no matter how scared you are.
Nobody’s soap is going to work for you. You have to mold yours yourself.
I’ll leave you with these words that an elder in my life once said to me “Always put in the work required where you are because as you go on, you want to look back and be able to say, I did all I could when I could.” It may not look like it (it hardly ever does) but there is always good in the stretching. You just have to stretch enough to be able to see it. The process is important, work hard. And when it gets overwhelming (because it will), remember, if it looks like there’s no value for it, it just hasn’t come through yet.
