Why do many hard working people not succeed? This is a question many ponder over. We have been told that hard work is the key to success, but the world is filled with thousands of examples of people who worked super hard and yet they had no results to show in return for all that hard work.
Don’t get me wrong, hard work is still incredibly important and most self made people do work very hard at what they do, but that by itself is not enough to achieve success, here are 8 reasons why many hard working people do not achieve success (apart from plain bad luck)
1) They work hard in the wrong direction.
The hardest working people on earth are probably daily wage laborers, but you rarely see them getting success. The reason is that no matter how hard they work, eventually it is directed towards a goal that is only of benefit to the one commissioning the work, they themselves are barely paid anything. So no matter how hard they work, they are barely able to make ends meet.
You may think this may not be true for you, because obviously you are an educated person reading this post. But you will be surprised to know how many educated people in jobs or wrong businesses waste their time working hard or persisting in the wrong direction. No matter how hard they work there, it is not going to lead to results.
Fortunately, the solution to this is extremely simple as well. It is learning, learning and more learning for yourself and your team!
2) They lack passion.
If you don’t have passion for what you do, your chance of success diminish significantly no matter what you do . The reason behind that is that if you don’t love what you do, even if you attain materialistic success, at the end of the day you will be leading a miserable life because you are being forced to do what you don’t enjoy everyday for the rest of your life.
Furthermore, when you are working super hard on something you don't enjoy for a long time, sooner or later it will lead to burn out. Your productivity, motivation and health are bound to go down which eventually will negatively impact your chances of sustained success anyway.
3) They don’t change with changing times.
If you are not adaptable with changing times then no matter how hard you work you are going to fail. Some times it is okay to give up and move on to things that reward better.
If you used to make pagers and insist on manufacturing pagers when smartphones have taken over, you can work as hard as you want but your success will be very limited.
If you were into the candle making business in an era where electric bulbs have taken over, your business will be impacted severely no matter how hard you work (unless you target areas areas where electricity access is limited)
4) They are afraid of taking risks.
The greatest risk in life is to take no risk, you risk becoming a nobody. Risk taking is incredibly important to success. If you work super hard but only do so on the safe path, there will never be a big pay off for all your efforts because they are focused on the old beaten path which may already have a lot of competitors and the reward may be low.
You can be a super hard working guy in a government job and your rewards will be limited because no matter how hard you work your salary and promotion will hardly be affected
You can be a super hard working guy in a private job and may get quicker promotions and raises but even then you will most likely hit a ceiling because all your work brings rewards for someone else, unless you have ownership in shares of the company.
Take calculated risks and see your hard work pay off!
5) They are in an environment where humiliation is the norm
If you are in an environment where you are always being overtly or subtly being humiliated, demeaned and disrespected, then sorry to say, but your hard work is unlikely to pay off.
People who don’t respect you will always stand in the way of you getting the rewards you deserve. This is especially true if they are superiors but many times they can simply be colleagues as well. They will try their best to ensure that you never get the right opportunities that will fetch you a big reward, or worse, they may steal credit for your efforts!
Always work in an environment which treats you with respect even if it pays a little less, the happiness and the long term potential for success you will get there is far greater.
6) They don’t have the right team
Having the right team is especially important. If you don’t have the right kind of people working with you towards your goal, you can be working as hard as you can personally but not get much in return.
If you are a horse driving a chariot and the other horses along with you try to run in the opposite direction, you can be a super hard working horse but can’t even move the chariot by one yard. To achieve the goal, everyone has to move in the same direction.
If what you are aiming for requires a team then associate with the right kind of people who have the same drive as you and the same commitment to achieving the goal, only then will your hard work actually pay off.
7 ) The timing is wrong
Sometimes, all that is going wrong for you is the timing. You can do the right thing at the wrong time. There are many instances of websites and ventures failing in the early 2000’s because the internet user base was smaller and the connections were much slower. Ten years later, ventures with almost the same business models are succeeding because now the landscape has changed completely.
The only thing you can do in this situation is to do your homework and gain perspective into the current market scenario. Being ahead of your time is a good thing only when your work actually leads a revolution. Being too ahead of your time will actually work against you because the world will not be ready for what you are offering and your hard work might be wasted.
8) Some of them maybe arrogant
This is among the top bad habits that can limit success. There have been several stories of how ego and attitude came in the way of one’s success but there has never been a single story of how one’s humility came in the way of success.
You maybe a talented genius who is extremely hard working but if you are egoistic then sooner or later you are going to rub someone the wrong way and that person, or group of people might pretty much bury your career.
If your performance is of immense value to your organization, your attitude can be ignored for a while, but not forever. One bad step and your hard work may go down the drain.
Remember even a visionary like Steve Jobs was fired from his own company and had to endure a very very long struggle because of his arrogance.
But not everyone is Steve Jobs and not everyone can bounce back like him. Most arrogant hard working people think they own the world until their attitude knocks them off their position and brings them to their knees, never to rise back again.
Why kill your success with your own attitude? Work hard but also remain humble. You will succeed a hundred times faster!
