MAKE A EFFORT

 Every now and again we hear, read and see people who have just achieved a new level of success in life. We celebrate them, talk about their achievements and at times get inspired and motivated by their accomplishments and new records. These successful people become notable in the society and communities; we all want to hear them speak; how they achieved what they achieved and see if we can learn a thing or two from them. They become celebrities and we all want to be like them in a way or the other, but may I say to you this morning that as much as we delight in these achievers and one day hope to be like them, a common factor to all these achievers is hard work. Not just work, hard work. No body accomplishes any worthwhile thing by regular work. Any great achievement is amenable to hard-work. Not ease, convenience, pleasure, in fact at times not fun. Many times it may require you doing something you don’t find easy or fun just for you to succeed in life. Many today are of the opinion if they do their jobs well, they will be successful. I wouldn’t disagree with this view depending on your definition of success. If it’s about affording the basic needs of life, like food, clothing, shelter, education, entertainment and all that, it’s possible. But for you to achieve anything phenomenal, you can’t afford to work normally or as usual. You can’t work like everyone else if you want to stand out from everyone else. Life is structured in a way that only a few have room at the top - the few who can do more and go further than the rest. That’s why you can never have more directors than managers in any organization; you can never have more managers than supervisors. Always; the room at the top is for fewer outstanding performers and achievers, not regular everyday working people, human capital structure and hierarchy is always a pyramid; it’s triangular – narrow at the to Many of us today keep working normally, doing what is expected and taking our jobs seriously. This sure is good, but only good enough for you to be valued and appreciated by your employer. You will be cherished and you’ll enjoy regular pay increase and promotion if there is room at your top. However, apprehending power, prestige and position in any good company does not come by working normally, it comes by outstanding work, outstanding result and impact; your work, your results and value contribution must stand out amongst that of other employees and contemporaries. The quality of what you do must be superior to others; the volume of what you do must be higher than others and your speed of delivery must be superior to that of others. All these require you working harder than everyone else. To move quickly ahead everyone else, you must work harder than everyone else. Many lately have tried to interpret working smart as working less; working smart is not working less; absolutely no, working smart simply means getting more done in a shorter period of time. Working smart is not tantamount to being lazy or laid back or lackadaisical. Many also have tried to make up for hard work with talent, being talented is really good, it makes you shine, but talent would only look good on you if you’re not hard working, it wouldn’t look good on the business; the value of your talent to the business is in consistent regular application of it to your task and assignments. Your talent must find expression through your work not just for show off. Nothing draws attention to you in your work place more than being hard working. Hard work is the power that ignites and makes real all visions, dreams, talent and even certificates. No matter your qualification, if you’re lazy, it’s useless to your employer, what you know doesn’t matter if your employer can’t benefit from it because you’re not bringing it to bear on the quality and quantity of your work. Hard work; as said earlier comes in levels, you can work for survival and you can also work for greatness. Regular people work for survival, super stars work for greatness. But I must say with our current socio-economic scenario in the country today, it is wisdom to work for greatness because regular people today make up the majority of those who can’t make ends meet. If you are a dreamer, your level of work must transcend survival. A dreamer is one involved in the task of creating a pattern in life, a new dimension to things and a fresh social order. It is not a piece of cake, it is not for common regular people, it is for the few unusual minds willing to pay the price and dare all they need to. Too many dreamers today never get started not because they don’t know what to do or lack the courage but simply because they can’t do the work; they can’t embrace the labour it requires. Hard work can be compared and is measurable by output and quality per season. What you do; the efficiency, effectiveness, quality and speed can be compared with that of your contemporaries. If you want to be ahead of the rest you must be willing to do more than the rest.  Becoming an outstanding person or an achiever requires you working hard on your job and working hard on yourself. You see, your competence and abilities will definitely impact the quality and speed of your output. What you know, your skills and abilities will tell on your speed and quality. You must be ready to work hard on you, if your work quality would improve. Improve your mind, improve your skills, increase your knowledge and improve your speed. The extra you put in more than ordinary people makes you extra ordinary. To be a rare employee you can’t to what mere employees do. All great achievements and successes are predicated on long periods of hard work in a single period towards a given end. You don’t just run up and down being busy; you can actually be busy and achieve nothing worthwhile at the end of the day if your approach to hard work is not systematic. The harder you work, the more you’re favored by your employers. Dear friend, plan to work hard today, organize your work, avoid distractions, avoid time wasting, and unnecessary conversations, place a high premium on every task you’re given; don’t treat it anyhow, socialize on your terms and work harder than the rest. Dear friend, make this effort.