Career Success: Step # 4: Be prepared to put in extraordinary effort

This is Post #5 from a Series of 6 Posts

Previous post in the series: Step # 3: Set achievable and measurable targets

Once your short term goals or targets are set, get going and focus all your energies and effort to achieve your targets. The best way to move forward is to take up one or two targets and achieve them and then move on to the next one.

For example, if your first target to get a Bachelor's Degree and we know that it will take you four years to achieve that. In this case, you can take up some short term course or internship during your semester breaks or holidays. So, at any given point in time, in the next four years, you are only working on your degree and your short term course/internship.

To get a better understanding of the effort required to achieve your targets, let's consider an athlete who has set his mind on winning a Gold Medal in the 100 meter event in the Olympics. The athlete practices for;

8 hours a day, 

6 days a week, 

52 weeks a year, 

for 4 years. 

The total effort that our athlete puts in comes to almost 36 million seconds (8 x 6 x 52 x 4 x 60 x 60 = 35,942,400 seconds to be precise!).

Mind boggling isn't it?

What is even more mind boggling is that, this athlete trains for 36 million seconds for a race that lasts less than 10 seconds (the world record is around 9.58 seconds).

An interesting point to note is that, the athlete puts in a humongous effort with no guarantees of winning a medal. The effort is just the price that this athlete pays, just to participate in the Olympics.

Likewise, the effort you have to put in to be successful, does not change for any profession that you choose, it is just a price that you must be willing to pay to be successful and there are no guarantees.

My next post highlights the necessity and importance of revisiting your plan on a periodic basis and then revising your plan if necessary.

Next Post in the Series: Step # 5: Revise your plan