7 Good Things That Happen To Actual Hardworking People That Have Nothing To Do With Their Jobs
Reap the benefits of good, hard work.
fizkes / Shutterstock Every person should work hard for a few months, years, or even decades at some point in their lives. But it's not for the commonly propagated reasons like power or money.
Those might be the wrong reasons to hustle and work hard, and can affect your mental health negatively. However, if you work hard for the right reasons, there are significant benefits.
Here are 7 good things that happen to hardworking people that have nothing to do with their jobs
1. You paradoxically live a slow and mindful life
Andrea Piacquadio / Pexels
Hustling and working hard is about maxing out. In terms of time, there's always a ceiling to how hard you can work. You can work only a certain number of hours, even if you squeeze yourself to your limits; burnout is real, after all.
But since you're putting your all into it, you may get frustrated when you reach a ceiling. That's when the question of efficiency comes up, and calls attention to improving the value of each moment you spend on each task.
Hard work is something that can help you understand the core principles of smart work. So, maybe in the future when you want to live a slower, more mindful life, you can do that because the principles of smart work save a lot of time.
2. You don't let emotions consume you
Engin Akyurt / Pexels
Emotions expand to fill the space they're allotted in your mind. It's similar to Parkinson's Law: the old adage that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.
If you allocate a couple of hours for some task, you might complete it within that time frame. However, if you allocate the whole day for the same task, it will take you the whole day.
Similarly, if your mind is empty, a negative emotion will expand to occupy your entire mind. However, if your mind is occupied, the negative emotion will occupy only just as much space as it should.
People mistake this for distraction or emotional numbness, concepts that seem unhealthy to people. But, in reality, having an occupied mind just prevents your emotions from taking over your mind.
3. You have higher self-awareness
Christina Morillo / Pexels
Hard work might be nothing short of a spiritual experience. Why? Because to work hard, you have to figure out what makes you tick.
It requires you to have more energy than a normal life might require. So, when you make a firm decision to start hustling, eventually, you'll figure out how to tap into your reserves of extreme energy.
That drive to succeed creates a desperate need for energy, and to find this energy you must explore your inner core. Because of your heightened self-awareness, you are able to find it much more easily.
4. You learn to differentiate between escaping life and truly enjoying life
Los Muertos Crew / Pexels
Working hard makes you highly aware of the value of time as a concept. This makes you repeatedly question the worthiness of anything that requires your time.
It leads you to make an important distinction between the two reasons for doing anything: doing something because you want to escape life, or doing something because you truly enjoy doing that thing.
For instance, maybe you said yes to anything that seemed better than being bored at home, only to later realize that saying yes empowered you. That distinction became so important because you started appreciating what you had, and stopped escaping life.
5. You become a pro at sublimation
Ketut Subiyanto / Pexels
Sublimation is a mature defense mechanism that helps you convert undesirable emotions and energy into productive outlets. For instance, you convert your frustration into a drive to finally change your life.
You need high emotional, spiritual, and physical energy to work hard in life. This need for energy will make you a pro at sublimation.
Energy is just that — energy. Just like in physics, heat can be converted to electricity; vice versa, one type of energy in life can be converted to another. And while working hard, the only energy that matters is your drive.
You learn to convert your insecurities, fears, desires, frustration, pessimism, and all other emotions in your life into motivation for change. Obviously, this has a couple of benefits, including taming the disadvantages of the negative energy and reaping the benefits of your drive.
So, being a pro at sublimation can truly improve your mental health.
6. You're immune to everyday frustrations
Godisable Jacob / Pexels
When you're working hard to chase an impossible goal, you're so focused that everyday trivial matters don't pull your attention. You don't worry about that person complaining about you. You don't have time to gossip about what that person did. You don't have the energy to care about silly issues.
When you work hard, you realize how much attention people around you give to trivial issues that don't matter at all. You don't lend your energy to unimportant things because it's reserved for the task at hand.
When you don't have something immense to devote your attention to, you won't be able to control where you spend your attention. Having something to work hard for allows you to meticulously control your attention. And that leads to immense peace in life.
7. You enjoy an amount of self-respect you've never experienced before
Monstera Production / Pexels
And this leads to more peace, despite what many people think.
You don't work hard when you have a mediocre goal. You work hard when you have a goal as big as Arnold Schwarzenegger's bicep.
But here's what is interesting: you don't actually have to achieve your goal to benefit from it. Just the process of setting a big goal makes you respect yourself more.
When you truly set out to achieve a big goal, it's you telling yourself that you're capable of achieving it; that you're capable of achieving anything. That makes your confidence go through the roof. Your self-respect rises as well. Your insecurities are crushed. And this brings immense peace.
Akshad Singi, M.D. is a writer whose work has been published in Better Humans, Mind Cafe, Medium, and more.