When You're the First In and the Last Out, What's Left for You?

You achieved success. How? By outworking everyone else, right?

You put in the hours when nobody else did. Went on the training courses and actually listened. Pushed for improvement when it would have been easy to settle.

Or that's the story you tell yourself.

But for some reason, the pushing, striving and extra hours are not showing the return on investment they used to. And you get frustrated and tired. Which makes you start to doubt yourself more and more.

Have you still got it?

But whether you do or you don't there's only one solution, right? Work harder. Work longer. Work better. Be more focussed. Be more productive. Just. More. And more and more.

At what cost?

What is the price of the strife and the self-doubt and the poor health and the missed dinner dates with your spouse and falling asleep with your notepad on your lap and another unfinished boxset winding to a lonely conclusion in the corner.

There is always a cost.

And there are no solutions, only trade offs.

Nothing worth achieving is ever achieved easily or without pain.

Here's how I think about this. And how I help my clients to think about it.

There is nothing wrong with working hard for a day, a week, a month, a year or a decade if you are working at something you genuinely care about.

If that's what you do, nothing I have written today will alarm you. Because the price will be worth every penny of sweat and toil. I'm lucky to have got to that place myself and love to help others with that.

But I suspect many of you, deep down, do the work and the hours and the stress and the toil in something that you don't actually love. That's a tough place to be.

And if that's you, maybe this time the solution isn't to plough on through again. Maybe this time you should do something smarter.

Figure out what true fulfilment would look like for you and work hard to attain that instead. Because the moment you have that clear in your mind, you'll be able to work as hard as you want, for as long as you want, as often as you want, easily.

Stephen

If this resonates with you, you should like my recent YouTube video How Everyone Gets Self-Improvement Wrong. If you don't have time to watch it all now, hit Save to watch it later.