“Do you know how easy this is for me?” — Good Will Hunting

You probably recognize this quote if you’ve seen one of my beloved Robin Williams movies. If you didn’t, go watch it, it’s great. Janitor and problem kid, Will is somehow a mathematical genius that solves problems on foggy mirrors and on napkins. He’s the image we have in mind when we say “genius”; the kid doomed for great things. But that’s just bullshit. And it holds many of us back from achieving our potential.

This is a story that I found many people relate to. And it’s my story as well. I always wanted to do something great. Something that matters. Always dreamed of discovering I am simply amazing at something and then “having my big break”. But what did I do for that? Well, almost nothing. I waited. And I waited. And I turned 18, then 20, then almost 21. And nothing happened. So I started to wonder. To think. “If I were to do something great, we would have seen it by now”. There are no signs of greatness. I don’t solve any conjectures on little napkins. I’m…average, I won’t ever do anything truly “great”. Or it would have happened by now. And that’s how a 20-year-old loses his motivation.

But I don’t wanna be that guy. And I don’t want you to be either. Forget Will. Forget genius. Forget the “naturals”. I genuinely don’t believe it works like that. Ask anyone who achieved something and they will tell you. “I wanted to do it and I worked my ass off”. It’s work. Smart work and dedication. That’s how real life works. You become a genius because you work for it. And let’s face it. We don’t work for it. I certainly don’t. Objectively looking at my life, it’s right where it should be. I did not do the work that would get me somewhere great. I would have needed the biggest luck ever to do something amazing, considering how little I tried. And I don’t wanna leave it to luck. And most “geniuses” do not. There is of course, every once in a while, some ridiculous talent, or lucky person that just has things happen for them. But even then. I would argue that the most valuable “God-given” talent that geniuses have is passion. Passion to study and work on a thing until they master it. When I hear “He’s a natural”, I hear “He finds it very easy to work on it”. And that is amazing. I envy those people. Because that is where most of us fail. We lack the conviction. Because it gets hard. It gets hard to work. And usually, we give up. We stop. I would love to not have to try so hard to make myself do the work. I would love to have it come naturally to me. But that does not mean I can’t work just as much. It doesn’t mean I can’t make myself “a natural”. I believe it’s all about that work. And we all can do it. I really believe that if you would observe every moment for 2 weeks out of the life of someone great, you would say “Yep. Makes sense. I totally see how they do such amazing things”. Great people have great schedules. They work smart, hard, and a lot. Until they are so high up, and it seems so ridiculous what they do, that we are forced to say: “What a genius”. And we don’t feel any guilt anymore for being lazy pieces of shit. Because we convinced ourselves we can’t ever do that anyway. But I don’t believe that to be true. I believe that you, and most of us, can do great things. If we put the work in. If we are honest with ourselves and we set our expectations to represent our effort. If we do that, we’ll all be geniuses. And probably pissed off that people now call us “naturals”, when we know that it was all just sweat and determination.

What keeps us back?

This might sound strange, but many of us are afraid to work hard. We are afraid to give it our all. Because trying your best and failing is terrifying. At least for me. It takes away all excuses. You can no longer say “If I would have worked harder I would have done way better”. You can’t fantasize anymore about how great you would be if you would only start working hard. Or even worse, how good you would have been if you would have been working hard in the past. The latter one is another scary excuse that gets us out of putting in the effort; “If only I would have started when I was 5. Or 10, or 15. But not now. Now it is too late. Imagine, if I would have started 5 years ago…I would be so good. But I am 5 years behind now. No point in trying”. I hate that excuse. And I fall victim to it all the time.

Call to action

Take a good look at your life and ask yourself: “Is the work that I am doing going to get me where I dream of being?” Be honest. If the answer is “yes”, then keep doing what you are doing. You are amazing. If not, then this is for you. Try to think of how much you really need to work to get where you want to be. And try to not picture everything going right. Don’t think only of success stories. Think of what failure might mean or how it might look, as well as how much more you need to work to get over that failure. Now make that image clear in your head. That is what you need to do from now on…

If you are like me, you are probably a bit motivated right now, but mostly scared. That’s ok. Let’s face that fear of trying and failing. We are afraid that if we fail, our value will be set in stone. “This is as far as you can possibly go. You tried”. But I am willing to bet that if you actually try your best, you won’t feel like that at all. You might be frustrated, but you will already know how it is to work hard. You will understand that you are not defined by that failure, and you will likely learn a lot from it. As long as you don’t shy away from it. Just face it and move on. Because with all the failures, you will still get way further than you ever would if you would not try so hard. Any failure that has hard work behind it, is a success in my eyes. And I think that’s how you’ll feel too when you are faced with it. Take the words of the great Michael Jordan and keep them in your mind: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

So forget geniuses, excuses, and fears. Go and put the work in. Maybe you won’t end up exactly where you dreamt you will, but you will achieve way more than you would by sitting around and waiting for your big break. Best of luck!

P.S.

I am in no way able to give advice on “how” to work hard and efficient. But I want to recommend the book “Deep work” by Cal Newport. It was a big inspiration for this article and it helped me a lot.