There's hard work, and there's hard work. Some people refer to those who put in just enough effort to get the job done as staying within the "comfort zone." Then there are others who are willing to go out of that zone and give that extra effort. The willingness to work hard and to go beyond what is expected of us is of primary importance if success is to be achieved. We've all run across it countless times: some individuals resent people who have achieved great success and its inherent monetary rewards, but would never be willing to make the sacrifices those people had to make. We achieve success in direct proportion to the effort we are willing to expend in its pursuit. I'm not suggesting that in order to be successful we have to become workaholics. The truly successful people I know have found a way to put in long hours on the job and still have time for vacations, hobbies, and family. What they don't allow in their lives are periods of time in which nothing is accomplished. These are active people who work hard and play hard, and who have a sense that hard work brings the sort of riches-monetary and otherwise-that we all desire.
An example is the actor Alan Alda. He commuted between his home on the East Coast and California, where the weekly episodes of "M*A*S*H" were shot, and said during an interview that on his way home after a week of shooting, he had to gear himself up for the "job" of being a husband and father with the same intensity as when he was mentally readying himself for a week of acting. He had recognized that hard work is the key to success, personal and professional, and he obviously is the sort of individual willing to exert considerable effort in both aspects of his life.
We have to work hard at our personal lives, including relationships, and our careers demand the same if we are to find fulfillment in them. If, in analyzing your attitude for success, you realize that you are not the sort of person who gets "high" on hard work and on completing goals, you had better either begin working on it or resign yourself to not achieving much more than you currently have.
Am I Willing to Take Risks?
If you are someone who is content with small risks and small gains, significant success might be out of your reach. Actually, this attribute of the successful person - the willingness to make decisions and suffer the consequences - can be combined with a more conservative, limited set of goals. We're not talking about being reckless. What we are referring to is working within the confines of your current job and making sure it gets done right, while at the same time reaching into other areas. Successful people in every walk of life have been willing to go after something new on the horizon. Most of these people have failed at least once, but they don't view failure as defeat. Instead, they learn from it, keep looking for opportunities, and get on with their lives with the same verve and resolve as before the failure.
Am I Okay? Are You Okay?
Successful people celebrate not only their own lives, but the lives of those around them. One of the most popular psychology books ever written was titled I'm OK, You're OK. Put most simply, it analyzes the way we relate to the world around us. For instance, criminals generally have the attitude "I'm okay, you're not okay," referring to their victims and society at large. Then there are those people whose self-esteem is so low that they view the world from a "You're okay, I'm not okay" perspective.
Healthy people deal with the world from the stand-point of the book's title: "I'm okay, you're okay." In other words, we're all okay, you and me, and we'd better get along on this earth.
Some of us fail to realize that no matter how sophisticated the technology surrounding us is, no matter how large the industry and product it represents, no matter what the future holds in terms of robots and an electronic society, people are at the heart of it. A key ingredient for success is to recognize this and to develop interpersonal skills that allow us to function smoothly and happily with others.
The successful manager or executive knows how to deal with the dual objective of keeping staff happy while contributing to the company's goals. Some people are naturally better at it than others, but everyone can learn to improve. It takes the desire to do so and a willingness to be introspective enough to analyze our faults and to act upon that knowledge.
