Achieving Success Without The Hard Work

We've all been tempted by those get rich quick products in the past and some of us may have even purchased one or two.

The problem is that very few of them (if any) contain anything more than empty promises, big claims and fancy marketing.

Unfortunately for us the only people who do become rich from the deal is the people who sell them.

So the question remains, is it really possible to achieve success without putting in the hard work first?


Is There an Easy Button?

I'm sure what you'd like me to say now is: yeah sure there is... and this is how it works. Hey, I could even try to sell you a product at this point which will make you rich overnight.

But, the answer to the question in the vast majority of cases is: no, there is no easy button and I'd be misleading you if I told you otherwise.

The truth is, there are no real shortcuts to success and any kind of success is and should be proceeded by hard work, failures and proof of your sheer determination.

Why do I believe that success should require hard work first? Because not everyone in this world deserves to be or even wants to be successful.

Some people just don't have any ambition at all and are happy to just go with the flow being reactional and following the easiest path in life.

If you want success you need to prove you're not one of these people.

Live for success, fight for it and when you've proved beyond doubt that you won't accept anything other than success, that's when it should be yours.

There are ways to achieve more with less effort, there are ways to reach your goals faster and you can achieve great things in a relatively short amount of time.

However, it does require effort especially early on and there is no easy button to overnight success.


Success Without Effort is Destructive

Ok, so you might have been thinking lottery win, there's an exception to the rule right?

But I don't think it is. Those few people who do achieve overnight success often find it very destructive.

There are countless stories of lottery winners going off the rails and within a few years losing it all and ending up with nothing.

You need time to prepare for success and when you achieve it, to feel like you've really earned it. A lottery win will give you neither of these.

I agree, there's worse problems to have than becoming a millionaire overnight but really, it does destroy peoples lives if they're not prepared for it.


Would You Really Want Overnight Success?

So I guess that raises another question, if you could have overnight success then would you really want it?

I've thought about this many times and sometimes after a bad day I'd be happy for someone to give me a briefcase full of money so I could give it all up.

However, if you're anything like me and you really want to achieve something with your life, then sudden success without the effort would take away your purpose.

It'd take away everything you've dreamed of achieving. Your goals of proving that you can do this by yourself, picking yourself up after failures and battling on. All this would all be gone.

You'd wake up knowing that you'd never have to work again. But what would you do to fill the void?

There are so many successful people already who did achieve everything with blood, sweat and toil and they're still trying to fill the void, many are not happy people.

So take away the sense of personal achievement too and what are you left with? One rich but unhappy overnight success with a massive void in their life. Not someone I want to be.


My Final Thought Then Over to You

My final thought is that I don't believe there is an easy button or shortcut to overnight success. I don't want there to be and I don't think there ever will be.

If success is relative (and I'm not saying it necessarily is) and everyone achieved it then no-one would really be successful anyway and no-one would be able to be.

You might want to read that sentence again because it's not easy to digest. I re-read it a few times after I wrote it and it makes sense to me, but feel free to comment if you disagree.

I expect this article might be a little controversial and not everyone will agree with me.

What I do believe though is those with a good business mindset are more likely to agree with me than those who accept "the daily grind and two weeks vacation a year" as all there is to life.

For those people a lottery win is the only glimmer of hope and the only way out.