Think of a scenario where you put in all of your time and effort into learning a new skill or completing a self-directed project. You know how much hard work you put into the task, but others don’t.
When people call you talented for how well you have progressed, you take it as a compliment. But when people say “You’re just talented,” then it feels like your effort was disregarded.
With today’s productivity culture, talent is considered more preferable than hard work, as being naturally apt saves more time in the long run. For example, people naturally good at math may consider a career with math as its base.
Now let’s change up the scenario a bit. Let’s say that you put in all of your time and effort into learning the same skill or completing a self-directed project. However, people call you hardworking this time.
You take it as a compliment that people acknowledge the effort you put in when they call you hardworking. But when people say “You’re just hardworking,” it’s as if you couldn’t have done the same with less effort. As if you could only complete the task because you worked hard.
Perhaps it’s true. Some tasks require a lot more effort and time than other tasks, but being limited to hard work comes across as an insult, largely with our productivity values today.
A Little Story About Myself
As a student, I was often regarded as hardworking, and I took the term as a compliment. I knew how hard I was working and I was happy with my progress. That all changed when others deemed my hard work as the only reason for my academic success.
When I was called hardworking, it meant that my sole effort took me to where I was. My peers worked with less effort and yielded similar academic success, so I seemed inefficient.
Although I was a step above in my academic performance, I felt like I wasn’t skilled enough to do the same with less effort, as if I started off a step below my peers.
I felt incompetent that I had to work harder than others to be where I want to be, when others had to work less. But what the ones judging never considered, was that my effort was necessary.
I set the standard high for myself, so more effort was required to achieve that standard. Where my skill level is in relation to my peers doesn’t matter when I am working to the goal for myself. I work with just enough effort to reach that goal, my effort was never unnecessary.
Working Smart or Hard?
Let’s disregard talent for a moment. And let’s disregard societal values, peer pressure, skill level, and even effort. Because they are all variables.
It doesn’t matter where we start off in skill compared to our peers, nor where we are expected to be in performance. We all have our own experiences that change these factors, such as a lack of pressure or overachieving peers.
When we set goals for ourselves, we work with the amount of effort that feels necessary to achieve that goal. Whether that would be short but focused study sessions or a prolonged period of effort spanning over several hours a day.
That’s what others can’t see. They don’t consider your skill level, how high you wish to achieve, how much pressure there is to succeed, etc. Only you know how much effort you put in and how efficient you are; you are being productive on your own terms.
We work with our own values on how much effort is necessary and how much we wish to achieve. This should be regarded as smart work: working just enough to reach our goals.
Don’t let others limit the work you put in by calling you ‘just’ hardworking or ‘just’ talented. Success is subjective, and so is the effort one puts in, so you should work for yourself.
