Success has no shortcuts

They say that nothing worth having ever comes easy. Experience teaches us that when you really want something so badly, the only way to achieve it is to work for it.

I happen to be part of the generation born after the baby boomers-Gen X or what some classify as the “middle child” of generations that falls in between the baby boomers and millennials. In family dynamics, they say that the middle children feel the most invisible. They don’t get to enjoy the prestige of the oldest child, nor do they receive the attention of the youngest.

The advantage to all this however is, many middle children become good negotiators and mediators, having been able to practice such skills throughout childhood. To some extent, I think that this is the best description there is when it comes to my generation.

The baby boomers have taught us that work, discipline, focus and determination are necessary for success. Baby boomers understand exactly what it means to never take things for granted. I grew up with elders often telling us not to be wasteful and that during the war everything was scarce.

Much of what my generation looks up to is an image of what it was like to thrive after losing everything and most of what we see in terms of success are the benefits of  hard work.

Generation X in my opinion tends to look back and appreciate the process undertaken by baby boomers and like the “middle child“, we also become the bridge for the succeeding generations most especially for the millennials. It has become our job to act as mediators for younger generations and our responsibility is to pass on our learnings in order for them to understand that success comes hand in hand with hard work and that the process is absolutely necessary.

Technology in the 21st century has given us easy and quick access to information which at times may also influence our expectations when it comes to our goals. We easily get the answers at one click which to a certain extent affects the process of achieving success while eliminating one very important ingredient – attitude.

Attitude defines us especially during the challenging days where quitting is not an option and working harder is the only way to go. Going from point A to point C is made easier by technology but missing out on point B becomes crucial to our growth. There are no shortcuts to success.

Every successful person we know of will tell us their story of failure upon failure while their attitude in aspiring and eventually attaining what they really want is constant.

We all set some goals and some may be difficult to believe while some may be for the near future. The point is however, to achieve these goals, it is important that we work with our heart and soul. It is important that we put in hard work and do not go for shortcuts even when sometimes in life our goals seem to be impossible and we start losing patience since we get tired and think that hard work is bringing in no results. The shortcuts may look easier and sometimes  you may reach close to your goals, but the question to ask yourself is,  is it really worthy?

Success achieved by shortcuts is short lived; we often get tempted by the shortcuts and ignore the gaps making us later realize how big a mistake it was. Hard work will pay off sooner or later and although the path of hard work is not easy, the destination it leads to will be worth all the difficulties.