We have all heard the famous saying that ”hard work is the key to success”. It is not totally wrong, but it is not the most accurate answer that we are looking for. It is simpler than we think. Probably it is so obvious that we oversee it. It does not have a complicated formula, or it does not require you to work 16 hours a day non-stop to achieve your goal. This mysterious word is “consistency.” Consistency puts us on the path towards reaching our goal. If the formula to success consists of hard work and consistency, hard work shows us the path, but consistency smoothens the path. This idea helps us to repeat the formula of success over and over and make it easier to visualize it.
We all had the experience of a sudden burst of energy exploding inside of us, cheering us to change our mindset and start to fight for a purpose. We are usually very successful for the first few days. The amount of satisfaction that one gets from hitting his/her goals for the first week is immense. At that point, we are proud of ourselves. We think that everything will be clear and straightforward for the rest of the journey, and ultimately, we decide to reward ourselves. This is where everything goes to downfall. The effect of early success will quickly diminish and fade away. A friend invites us to go out with them and have fun. We feel like we deserve to spend that one night carefree. The same thing happens tomorrow, and we still have the feeling that everything is under control. Another night of partying, another step closer to steer away from the road. Now it is the start of the week, those two days that we could spend on studying and doing our assignments, we allocated it to something less important. I am not saying that socializing and seeing friends is just a distraction, but for the sake of our objective, we need to solely concentrate on our goal, detect and know the ups and downs, and continue the journey stronger. I agree. It is almost an impossible task to say no to such gatherings. The only thing in your mind that can save you from this mistake is the dream that you have nurtured throughout these years. Having a dream is the most essential factor that keeps us motivated. We are better off having one to benefit from it.
Back to our main topic. In the world of sports, we see consistency in different sports stars’ professional life, and the one that stands out among all others is Michael Jordan. He was not one of those gifted basketball players that did not need to work, day and night, to prove themselves. Now, this argument comes up that Michael Jordan is known for being the greatest basketball player that achieved everything through hard work. We tend to emphasize the tangible aspect of this process. We saw him working out in the gym, shooting the basket thousands of times every day, and that is what we perceive as his secret to success. Let us analyze from another perspective. Do we go back in time and see how long it took him to reach that level? To the days that he was still in high school and he could not make the team. What transformed him o a player that won 6 NBA championships? Hard work? it is one of the factors. But if we explore deeper into that, we realize the fact that he had this routine almost for his entire career, and it began even before he came to NBA. We see him repeating the same routine over and over again until he reaches that level of excellence that makes you associate basketball with him whenever you hear his name. Another lesson hidden in every successful person’s life is how to overcome failure. You can not give up whenever you run into a bump on the road. If every journey was to be ended with a defeat, there would not have been such a motivational story to exemplify.
Legendary stories come out of hardships. Legends are the manifestation of hard work and consistency. They combine these traits and answer to every problem they face on the path of glory. Patience is the elixir that we need to have if we try to finish the story desirably. In the end, nothing can beat consistency. Even if you do not put enough effort into finishing in a place you imagined for yourself, consistency still can bring you close to it.
