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This is not necessarily in regards to just work & employment, but life overall.
Sometimes I feel as if I'm not where I want to be in life because I'm too lazy. Other times I feel it's because I've gotten bad breaks and made some terrible decisions.
But how can you tell how hard working you are relative to others? What is the best gauge?
Is it grades in high school or college? Those are a non-biased indicator usually.
Is it promotions and success at work? I think many would argue that is biased to factors outside of work ethic.
Is it 'first one in, last to leave'? I think this is a good indicator, but just because you are physically there doesn't mean you are working harder.
Is it your co-workers opinions of you? I have always been able to get stellar references from my bosses, but I don't know if it's because they really think highly of me or because people rarely give bad references. One of my coworkers wrote on my Birthday card that I shouldn't work so hard.
What is the best way to gauge how good your work ethic truly is?
Do you get everything you need to done everyday and have time to help others at your job? Does your company add more responsibilities on you due to you being able to cover it? Do you spend most of your time at work hanging out and talking or spending time on the internet or do you work on getting all your work done in a timely manner?
School is not really an indicator, my sister and cousin who are both within 15 months of age of me studied 3 hours a night, and constantly in college, I personally refused to do homework, we all had within a few tenths of a point difference in high school GPA. Both graduated college with 3.1 GPAs with no jobs throughout school, and both worked hard on their studies. I quit school after 96 credit hours with a 4.0 GPA despite working at least full time and having a wife and kids at the time.
Promotions can often be part of office politics.
Some coworkers hate the hard workers as they make them look bad, especially if they are telling you not to work so hard.
Also all of us make bad decisions, if you do not you are not human, and sometimes bad luck happens, but if you answer the questions at the top the right way, then usually they are a pretty good indicator of how hard you work.
Sometimes I feel as if I'm not where I want to be in life because I'm too lazy.
You probably are. First step is acknowledging it. Next is fixing it.
A job that requires you to be there by 7AM will do wonders.
Quote:
But how can you tell how hard working you are relative to others?
What is the best gauge?
Dunno 'bout "best"...
but start with your day to day wake up -->get up -->get out -->get active sequence.
If you don't do that EVERY day or it takes more than 45 minutes?
What you do once up and active is less important than that you're actually doing *something*
Last edited by MrRational; 10-23-2013 at 09:17 AM..
We've all made bad decisions. We've all had bad breaks. Forget about all that.
Decide what you want, research the path to getting it, develop a plan and then execute the plan. Life's elevator is broken; take the stairs. Meaning, don't expect to reach your goal quickly. Be prepared to slog along each step until you get to where you want to be.
Learn to be savvy and develop "stick to it ness." Some of the steps along the way will suck but you need to go that route to get to your goal.
I don't know if grades have anything to do with how hard working someone is, I had a good friend in college who was the daughter of a retired high ranking military official and she was the laziest person I have ever met to this day. She had excellent grades, 3.7 gpa, but never studied or challenged herself and never took leadership positions or worked a day in her life. She has an excellent job now, lol.
I think the best gauge of deciding whether or not someone is a hard worker would be if they exceed expectations while getting their work done by deadlines. Whenever I was helping to run a huge college philanthropy event people were always amazed for some reason that I got everything done on time/before deadlines or that I showed up early to events to help set them all up.
I think it's a combination of all the small things that you do. Like getting to work a couple minutes before most people, getting your stuff done on time, staying organized, helping out with other things when needed, stuff like that. I only recently graduated from college and I don't have a career yet, but I worked on some of the biggest philanthropy events in my region and qualities like those mentioned were always noticed. Maybe in the corporate world it's different, idk.
The problem is that 'hard working' is a bit of a nebulous concept.
You have people that try very hard and spend long hours but who are simply not very good at the job.
The, at the other end of the spectrum, you have people who work very effectively. In other words, they do the same amount of work as others both faster and with a greater degree of accuracy/skill, etc..
So, who is the hard worker? The person that gets the job done properly in 8 hours or the person that gets the job done properly in 6 hours?
The problem is that 'hard working' is a bit of a nebulous concept.
You have people that try very hard and spend long hours but who are simply not very good at the job.
The, at the other end of the spectrum, you have people who work very effectively. In other words, they do the same amount of work as others both faster and with a greater degree of accuracy/skill, etc..
So, who is the hard worker? The person that gets the job done properly in 8 hours or the person that gets the job done properly in 6 hours?
I agree. I happen to be a very fast worker; I get done in 3 hours what apparently takes my coworkers all day. I use that extra time to work on other things (my side businesses). Who knows what my boss at my day job thinks of my work ethic? I do everything he asks and I do it quickly. Is it bad that it doesn't take me 4 hours to do every single task? Is it bad that I would rather come in and leave at the times indicated in my offer letter? I don't know.
At the end of the day, I honestly don't care. I know I am a hard worker; I do much more than the average person. So, that's enough for me.
I agree. I happen to be a very fast worker; I get done in 3 hours what apparently takes my coworkers all day. I use that extra time to work on other things (my side businesses). Who knows what my boss at my day job thinks of my work ethic? I do everything he asks and I do it quickly. Is it bad that it doesn't take me 4 hours to do every single task? Is it bad that I would rather come in and leave at the times indicated in my offer letter? I don't know.
At the end of the day, I honestly don't care. I know I am a hard worker; I do much more than the average person. So, that's enough for me.
I had a guy working for me who was like you. He got stuff done in half the time as anyone else and invariably to a higher quality than the others. It caused quite a lot of friction in the office as his co-worker didn't think it was 'fair' that he was going home at 5pm every evening while they often had to stay later to get their work finished.
This is not necessarily in regards to just work & employment, but life overall.
Sometimes I feel as if I'm not where I want to be in life because I'm too lazy. Other times I feel it's because I've gotten bad breaks and made some terrible decisions.
But how can you tell how hard working you are relative to others? What is the best gauge?
Is it grades in high school or college? Those are a non-biased indicator usually.
Is it promotions and success at work? I think many would argue that is biased to factors outside of work ethic.
Is it 'first one in, last to leave'? I think this is a good indicator, but just because you are physically there doesn't mean you are working harder.
Is it your co-workers opinions of you? I have always been able to get stellar references from my bosses, but I don't know if it's because they really think highly of me or because people rarely give bad references. One of my coworkers wrote on my Birthday card that I shouldn't work so hard.
What is the best way to gauge how good your work ethic truly is?
Usually it is more how SMART you work not how hard!
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