Why "Hard Work" Is Way Overrated

I know the title of this one is going to get me in trouble with some people, (especially those that read just the title and not the whole blog) but I’m going to tell you why hard work is way overrated. I can almost hear the backlash now, “Americans are too lazy as it is!” and “Hard work is how I got to where I am!” and “Nothing gets accomplished sitting around on your ass!” Yea, yea—I’ve heard it all before. But I’d like to use the term “hard work” to illustrate why the words we choose are extremely important, and a phrase that has a certain meaning to one person could have the opposite meaning to someone else.

My Dad always told me I had to work hard if I wanted to get anywhere in life. I believe his favorite metaphor for hard work was that you “have to put your nose to the grindstone.” This always sounded painful to me, and I could never figure out how sanding off body parts would lead me to success. My Dad was a hard worker, and worked long days six days a week, and I could probably count on one hand the number of days of work he missed while he was alive. The problem is that my Dad was not anyone that I would consider successful. He wasn’t happy, he wasn’t financially well off, and while this is just my personal opinion, he never really got anywhere in life. So when did all the hard work pay off for him? I would have to say that it never did.


I know that not everyone is like my Dad, and that there are many truly successful people that will swear by hard work. Maybe the reason the term never appealed to me was because my Dad would talk about how important it was, and yet he seemed to be miserable. I loved my Dad, but I’ve always considered his life as a blueprint of what not to do, so there had to be something better than “hard work,” because it clearly did nothing to improve the quality of his life. I never believed that laziness would lead to success, but maybe there was a better term that I could latch onto that would lead me in the right direction. Because of his example, I equated the words “hard work” with struggle, frustration, and hardship. These are not words that should be synonymous for our lives, and if these words are what you’re experiencing most of the time then you definitely aren’t successful—no matter how much money or possessions you have.









For a good part of my life I just thought I was lazy because the words hard work made me cringe. Then I realized it wasn’t action that I despised, it was the meaning I had attached to the words hard work. So I started doing things that inspired me and made me feel excited to be alive. Things that, quite honestly, don’t even feel like work at all, let alone hard work. I soon learned that inspired action is just as effective as hard work, but it’s also more enjoyable, sustainable, and better for your health, wealth, and peace of mind. You might just say it blows hard work out of the water! Think about it: are you better at doing things you love to do, or doing things that you hate to do? Which one can you do more of? Which one makes you happier? Inspired action trumps hard work every time because it feels so natural when we’re doing it. It takes no struggle, it causes no strife--it’s what we were born to do.

One might be tempted to argue that US soldiers in the Afghanistan don’t have the luxury of ignoring hard work, when their days and lives are full of it. But I ask you, what makes a soldier become a soldier? Words like honor and valor and pride and loyalty and dedication and freedom—forgive me if I’m sounding a bit like Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men.” My point is that this kind of dedication is the pinnacle of inspired action. Do you think anyone would risk their life to do hard work--just for hard work’s sake!? No, they do it because the believe in what they’re with every fiber of their being, and that sounds a lot more like inspired action than hard work to me.

Finally, you might think this is just semantics and that the meaning we give to words is of little consequence. I’ve got news for you, everything we do, say, or experience has no meaning until we attach a meaning to it. So it is your job to weed out the disempowering things that you’ve been telling yourself and replace them with things that inspire you. The good news is, you might not even have to quit that job that’s been dragging you down. You might just be able to look at it from another perspective, one that makes the work inspirational and exciting--and not so hard.



When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
~Wayne Dyer


If I’ve offended anyone that makes “hard work” their mantra, that is not my intention. If those words work for you and your life, by all means, keep using them to your advantage. But remember, life doesn’t need to be a struggle. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and hurdles that we must overcome—and personally, I like those words much better than struggle, frustration, and hardship. Sometimes changing our attitude, our perspective, or the words we use is all we need to improve our circumstances, and it just takes a little inspired action. Trust me, it’s not hard work.