We were all once babies.

You know those people who appear to be naturally good. You could wake them up at midnight and they will know their stuff. Sometimes it seems that no matter how hard you work you'll never be good enough. You probably know that its not true, but the world we now live in subconsciously tells us otherwise . Effort seems to be underestimated these days. Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook we call him a computer nerd, Kenyans run so fast, we say its in the food they eat. Good students perform well we say they are born smart. Talent is equated to magic and if you don't have it, look elsewhere or you are doomed.


I have to admit that I have fallen to this trap sometimes, passing on opportunities because I thought I wasn't born with it. Upon reading Malcom Gladwell's Outliers you may say I'm less intimidated. Malcom speaks of the 10000 hour rule, where he emphasizes that you need at least 10000 hours to be an expert at something, anything. Almost all outliers have put in at least these hours, whether they had natural talent or not. Perhaps talent makes it easier to dedicate that much time but in many cases, dedication is enough to defeat natural talent.

Since 2008 Usain Bolt has been breaking his own record, earning the title of the fastest human alive.
He obviously trains a lot but  articles such as this have been written , coming up with contradictory facts about how much height and "twitch muscles" are the reasons for his success. This video clearly shows how much time he is dedicating to self improvement.

I understand where these claims are coming from. We humans are inherently insecure, we try to make for what we don't have by attributing it to something that is beyond our control. Its understandable but we have to be mindful of how we are belittling other people. We were all once babies, at some point we all knew nothing, the stars we have today just put in more hours to their craft.

 The secret? Shut your ears and eyes an look at your plate because in the end its what really matters, literally.  Practice a craft you are not comfortable with until it becomes second nature. Stop listening to opinions and start putting in those hours because sometimes we look up to other people so much that we forget to look into ourselves. Have a productive week ahead.

Allow yourself to be happy.

A lot of people equate happiness to laziness. That is if you are happy then you will be too content with what you have hence you won't be the ambition for more.  We have glorified self-torture so much that among others hustling has become a positive word and sleeping for less than healthy hours is praised particularly among the youth. We even go as far as diminishing our achievements, depriving ourselves so that we are not too comfortable. I don't know to what extent this will work but I know that this approach ultimately breaks in the long run. 

Success is built from effort, but effort is not the same as torture. Effort is meaningful work done for the love of it or to achieve a particular goal. Effort is not sleep deprivation so that you look busy or to please other people. Effort comes naturally.

I have to admit that I also fell into the trap, in high school the school manager , a clergy, used to give us a motivating speech every Monday about we should work hard to like him, to achieve our dreams. Recreation was considered taboo back then.What he didn't emphasize though was what motivated him, see he was making a huge difference in society and he enjoys it. He was in his zone, he was living with purpose and everything else was just a necessary evil. Getting there doesn't happen automatically, we don't all wake up knowing our talent, passion and purpose.  We have to try different things, fail at some or many to get to that zone. 

Relaxing is not laziness, it is sometimes necessary

The law of the secret states that like attracts like. Discontent attracts more discontent and  peace attracts more peace. Working for  something you love and enjoy is not self deprivation because it is rewarding in itself and it attracts more success. The vice versa is also true. This is the secret with history makers of all times. They don't just work aimlessly. 

Moral story: There is nothing wrong with being happy and content.