There is no such thing as 'Hard Work'

[darkw0rker]

I've been thinking quite a while about the nature of hard work. The more I saw hard work, the more I resisted it. I had reached a point where sitting on a desk and surfing internet was hard work for me, usually I lie in bed, put my laptop on my lap and surf the web.

I was asking myself, why should some tasks be hard and some easy to do? How come some people regard some work as hard yet others would regard the same work to be easy? Why is that some things are only hard at first and gets easy throughout the way? How is it possible for a hard work to become easy at all?

For instance if you're not a reader and try to read for 20 minutes at one sitting, then it's going to be really hard. But after months of reading, that same 20 minutes will be so easy for you.

Then I concluded that there is no thing as hard work or easy work. The whole thing is subjective. It's all about our resistance (usually subconscious) to certain tasks that make them hard or easy. The greater our resistance to it, the harder it seems. And by nature we as humans tend to avoid hard work and welcome easy tasks.

So the way to accomplish a hard task is not to try harder. Instead you should change the way you see it.

Try to see it as easy and as fun as possible. You won't believe your eyes how much easier the task becomes for you.

And of course it depends on your comfort zone. The greater your comfort zone, the easier life seems to be.

Let me know what you think.

[Trezker]

An excellent post good sir.
All true, it's my mental resistance that makes certain tasks hard to do.
Try to do paperwork, but first you strap yourself to a wild horse and scare it. It's a pretty silly thing to do but it's essentially the same thing.

Everyone can send a half assed job application. The basics of sending a job application is something every normal person can do, the only hindrance is mental resistance to the consequences of doing so.

There is however work that is hard or impossible for a different reason. But that's hard in a different meaning. That is work that requires a certain level of skill. Game development newbies can't produce AAA titles right away. No matter how much they try it still takes many years to reach the level of skill required to do something that great.

So hard work is either a matter of releasing the brakes and push the gas, or it's a matter of training. Depending on what the work is and your skill level.

[Eric Roosevelt]

I agree to an extent. It's silly to make things harder for yourself than they need to be. Most everyday tasks are quite easy once you get the hang of them. But I wouldn't go so far as saying that hard work doesn't exist, at least if hard means "difficult", and if work simply means an effort to accomplish something. Difficult accomplishments certainly exist. In fact, if you don't ever do things that are slightly more difficult than what you think you can accomplish, then you're unlikely to grow.

[jtracy]

In my experience, hard work is any effort I make that I don't really expect to succeed at. I think work gets easier over time, because the more you practise something the more you expect that you will be able to do it effectively. The hardest work of all is that which other people tell you to do but you don't really want to. I guess that's why most people complain so much about their job. I think work is easier too when you really want the outcome, because you aren't focused on what you don't want (the work) and instead focus on what you do want (the outcome).

[Writertype]

Originally Posted by darkw0rker

For instance if you're not a reader and try to read for 20 minutes at one sitting, then it's going to be really hard. But after months of reading, that same 20 minutes will be so easy for you.

...

Try to see it as easy and as fun as possible. You won't believe your eyes how much easier the task becomes for you.

For the first quoted part, are you so sure? Let's say I'm literally not a reader, as in I'm actually illiterate. It's going to be extremely hard to read. If I put in lots of "hard work" and learn to read over time, then of course I will be able to easily read for twenty minutes at some point in the future. Still, if the illiterate present me just goes "hey now, this isn't hard, I'll get reading!" I still won't be able to read and I will just be frustrated.

The second piece of quoted advice, though, is golden! When you look for what makes a task enjoyable and fun you will learn it faster, enjoy it more, fear it less, and find that whatever the average person's perceived "difficulty" for the task it was not an unpleasant experience.

You can learn to do what you love, or you can learn to love what you do. I don't think I'm experienced enough to say if one is clearly better.

[ajkumar]

Great post

I agree with the part about stuff that is "out of your comfort zone" being difficult to do.

This is exactly why it is important to step out of your comfort zone, to do things you haven't done before or things that are hard to do. This allows you to broaden your spectrum, create self-discipline, and grow.

The only thing you should be is be comfortable being uncomfortable

[bluedragon]

I liked it too.
It all depends on how much interest we have in the problem. For example, when I worked on my website and I was very enthusiastic about the prospect of people reading what I write, and of earning a passive income, I could work for 8 hours straight on a CSS, without eating or drinking water at all. It would pass by like minutes. But if I had to meditate for 5 minutes, I always managed to make an excuse. Or when it came to school work - man! that was almost unfathomable.

[dice]

Neat idea. I don't like to think about hard work or work ethic, the word work has so much flabshmab attached to it. I think of it as a feeling of confusion or a signal that tells me 'hey, this is new, and this is good' rather than the feeling people describe as 'discomfort' or fatigue from working or thinking or doing something they're not used to.

Like when exercising, people keep working until they feel a burn or feel sore. The same principals can be applied to anything, except instead of a burn you might feel confusion or another discomfort. It's just an indicator!