The internet is awash with a lot of motivational quotes, videos and even personalities who prescribe one solution for going from where you are to where you want to be – Hustle/Grind/Hard work or whatever other variant that represents the willingness and commitment to wake up 4 hours before everybody else and work for the next 18 hours or so, every single day for the rest of your life.
Taking this kind of advice, hook, line, and sinker and proceeding to execute it religiously will only give you one result – you will lose. Hard work/Hustle is just not enough; everybody else already does that. Your focus should not be on playing the game, rather, it should be about beating the game.
How do you beat the game? By working smart. We all have 24 hours every day, no more no less. If you think you are going to beat your competition just by working for more hours every day or by “out-hustling” everyone, then I guarantee you, you will lose.
What you should be focusing and working on every day is how to work faster, smarter and more efficiently than others. Hard work/Hustle/Grind is not the game; productivity is the game. Think of it like this; you are trying to get into a premier sports league like the NBA or the NFL. To even get that chance to get into a team and wear a jersey you must have worked HARD, but now you want to be the MVP, or you want to get into the all-stars team, what do you think, you are going to get there just by working harder than everybody else? No, you won't.
If productivity is the game, then how do you get productive? You must have heard about the economist Vilfredo Pareto and his principle – the Pareto principle, better known now as the 80/20 rule. This rule works on virtually everything. This rule, when adapted to business and entrepreneurship basically points out that 80 percent (or thereabout) of progressive results comes from only 20 percent (or thereabout) of the various tasks executed.
Your job now would be to study yourself and your business to identify the areas and tasks that fall into that 20 percent that gives you the most results and eliminate the rest. And when I say, eliminate, I do not mean that you stop doing them all together, no, you can simply delegate or outsource
A lot of people out there do not want to pay another person to do what they can do by themselves. If you are a business owner, and you want to get to that next level, then you have to stop trying to do everything yourself. You must learn to remove yourself from the everyday running of the business. Value your time more than you value money. Every task that can be delegated or outsourced should be. Don't get lost in the everyday repetitive tasks, rather, delegate or outsource them and focus more on building your business and scaling up.