Is working hard bad?
I read a book a while back that made me go "that's it!" Now, Discover Your Strengths is all about how we should spend our time doing things we are good at, becoming excellent at those tasks, rather than wasting our time trying to become mediocre at the things we aren't good at. I intuitively did this for the people that worked for me – I gave them the tasks they were good at. Usually, those were the tasks they enjoyed doing. (From a manager's perspective that was the best way to get things done well and quickly.) But I hadn't really looked at it from a personal perspective. I'd been busy trying to be good at all the things someone in my position was "supposed" to be good at.
The Slow Leadership blog had an interesting story about the Romans today:
The Romans thought every one had a genius — a kind of innate allocation of ability and luck. Some people were blessed with the genius to be great leaders. The proof was simple: it came easily and naturally to them. If you had to struggle for something, that wasn't suitable for your genius. What would they have made of the modern notion that having to nearly kill yourself — and give up most other pleasures in life — is somehow required of anyone aspiring to a leadership position?
I agree that if you are struggling with something, it's probably not something you will ever be really good at. I disagree that you have innate talents – I think you are good at the things you enjoy. You enjoy them, so you work hard at them. You work hard at them, so you become good at them. The key is that you enjoyed working hard. Just look at any professional athlete – maybe they have an innate talent for their sport – but they work very, very hard to become top in their sport.
So working hard for something isn't necessarily bad but if you don't enjoy working for it, then it's highly unlikely you'll become a genius at it.
