

Ask HN: Can you develop "work ethic"? - coryl

A common trait of all successful business people, athletes, entertainers, etc. is that they all work insanely hard.<p>Personally, I've never been a very hard worker; I've always preferred to work smart. There are many smart-but-lazy types out there, who could probably achieve much more with a little work ethic.<p>So my question is: can you develop work ethic? Is it something instilled from an early age? Is it about changing your psychological view of the world?<p>Will Smith says "I'm not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be outworked, period...if we get on a treadmill together, there's 2 things: you're getting off first, or I'm going to die. It's really that simple."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M88uMRwsj0U&#38;feature=player_detailpage#t=242s<p>Do we simply make decisions sooner and execute on them rather than think through them?
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rmah
Lots of unsuccessful people work very very hard as well. The trick is not to
just work "smart" or to just work "hard" but to work both "smart" AND "hard".
If you observe highly effective successful people, you'll see they work smart
and work hard.

Can you develop a work ethic? Of course you can. Human behavior is very
malleable. The military makes many lazy people into hard workers. For others,
perhaps all you need is a really desirable goal that overshadows everything
else in your life. I doubt there is a magic bullet, single solution. As with
so many things, different routes or different techniques are probably more
suitable for different people.

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daimyoyo
If I have something I'm passionate about, I have no problem working VERY hard.
When my friends and I started a new business, I loved it. I had no problem
working 16-18 hours a day because there was no place I'd rather be. On the
other side of that, my first job was in manufacturing. I started work when
they asked me to and I clocked out when they asked me to but I never put any
more effort in than was absolutely necessary. I have a good feeling that you
simply haven't found that dream project yet. Once you have something that you
think about even while you're at home, something that you can't wait to start
doing every monday, you'll be surprised how easy the "hard work" becomes.

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Mz
I wouldn't say that I have been developing "work ethic", but I would say I
have been actively developing "work capacity" in the last few years. I was
diagnosed with a genetic disorder late in life, which explains a lot of my
lack of energy, focus or accomplishment over the years. But I have also been
on a few lists for parents of gifted kids and this kind of issue comes up
fairly often as a topic: That gifted kids are frequently kind of lazy and used
to being able to spend 5 minutes on something and get A's. Many of them have a
crisis when they hit college and have to really study for the first time in
their lives. For one thing, many of them don't know how to really study
because they never really had to. For another, it's a huge shock and identity
crisis.

I didn't go through that with college. I had good study habits. I did find
college was actual work, much more so than high school, and I did have some
bumps in the road initially, but nothing like some of the stories I have
heard. However, I was quite ill when I was finally diagnosed in my 30's with
"atypical cystic fibrosis" and it rapidly became clear to me that I could get
healthier but not if I remained married to the man I was with. Like all my
doctors, my ex was all too happy to blame it all on my genes and wash his
hands of any real responsibility. It was clear to me that he would never get
on board with the drastic measures needed for me to get healthier and that if
I stayed, I would face the horror of dying a slow, torturous death essentially
at the hands of loved ones and doctors who would all think I was insane for
blaming them. It was clear to me that leaving was my only hope of getting well
and getting well was my only hope of proving that I was right, this could be
done. So I got divorced while very ill and started my life over.

I got a Certificate in GIS before divorcing and had a good call back rate on
my resume. But I was very ill and doped to the gills, so I didn't interview
well. I ultimately ended up with an entry level job unrelated to my training
which paid about half of what the GIS jobs I had been applying to paid. I've
been stuck in this same job for 4.5 years while getting well. Being so sick
has hampered my performance and prevented me from getting promoted. So I have
had ample opportunity to get over thinking I'm all Special and can just slap
something together at the last minute and it will still be vastly superior to
what everyone else is doing, which is my historical experience prior to trying
to start my life over while very ill.

FWIW: A couple of very intelligent people at work who went from basically the
job I am doing now directly to a supervisory position later got fired. I think
a lot of very talented, intelligent people have serious, serious issues with
what you are calling "work ethic" (or ethics of any sort). They think the
rules don't quite apply to them because, in fact, the rules for someone very
talented really are different. I think such people are pretty routinely in
danger of getting confused about just which rules they really have to follow.
I am aware that I am often able to find a loop-hole or what not -- that doing
something well enough or doing things differently in the right way can put you
in a different space -- but I am also acutely aware that social and ethical
stuff (like respecting other people) still applies, no matter how smart I am.

I would suggest you a) look to your health for a possibly unrecognized, and
thus untreated, issue (such as allergies) and b) put yourself in a situation
where your natural talents aren't terribly helpful and you just have to do the
grunt work, like everyone else. You might try volunteering in some capacity to
accomplish this piece of it. I learned a lot of humbleness volunteering to
teach math (and tutoring a mentally retarded girl who was in algebra and
worked harder for her C's and D's than I ever worked for A's and B's) and
doing volunteer work at a homeless shelter. Privilege tends to foster
laziness. Getting out of your little insular world (if you have such, I don't
know if you do) can be wonderfully growth-producing.

EDIT: As for the health stuff and my focus on the idea of "work capacity",
please note that Will Smith has to have a certain amount of physical work
capacity to make the statement you quoted. So if you don't have that attitude,
it's possible that it's because you just don't have the physical capacity --
i.e. you aren't as healthy/fit as he is. If you want to be like him in terms
of attitude, I strongly recommend you work on developing work capacity, as I
have done, which is very much rooted in physical ability to do sustained work.
Even minor health issues, if not properly attended to, will interfere in this
regard.

