Hard work pays off?

[NinjaDeathSlap]

It's not a completely false statement. Sometimes you work hard and you will be justly rewarded. However, some people can get results for certain things by barely even trying, and some people for certain things will always be crap no matter how much effort they put into it.

 

[Hagi]

hat first point is how it should be. alas, it is not.
i custom make jewelry for snobby, uptight rich people (of wich i hope non are reading the escapist^^). it's pretty, expensive, and actually completely useless, and not even hard work or very difficult. everyone with some skill in fine crafts could to what i do. and yet i earn more than a scientist who sacrifices every bit of personal life in order to find a cure for cancer.

i wouldn't say earning money without contribution to production or society is 'morally ambiguous'. it's taking advantage of the circumstances in an unfair world. if that's morally ambiguous, i don't know..

What you describe here isn't 'kissing ass' or knowing people.

It's the production of a scarce product. Which is high on the labor factor (labor includes technical expertise) and as such it economically speaking is hard work (by virtue of being producing a lot, measured by it's monetary value, through labor), even if you do not experience it as such. Technical expertise is a contribution to production.

And if everyone could do what you did it, by economic logic, wouldn't be a scarce product.

I fully realize that there's more to the world then just economics. But even then I wouldn't describe what you're doing as 'kissing ass' or knowing people.

 

[NightHawk21]

Just recently I came to realize, I've never believed in the concept of 'hard work pays off'. Now, I am a quite intelligent person, to the point where I was always the person who could pay absolutely no attention to half the class, yet still ace all the tests. But I think this fact may have simply caused me to have little motivation to actually 'TRY' to succeed, because I've always just 'got it', now I just kinda feel under the idea that either you succeed in something or you don't, and most actual effort put into trying to succeed will only have a negligible effect. So never once have I tried or learned something that I found initially difficult, because I just feel like "well if I'm not good at it now, a lot of practicing probably won't make a huge difference.."

I'm beginning to see that this is probably a harmful mindset for me to have. I would like to learn another language, I would like to learn little skills, etc. So, for discussion value, as well as some encouragement for me, what is something for you that started out really difficult, but that you got really good at through practice?

I was the same way in highschool. Never took a single note in any class (except chem) and I finished all classes 95+. Then I went into university and I managed to pull decent grades in my classes by doing some work. Now I'm in Molecular Biology and Genetics and work is pretty much all I know. So ya you wanna do hard work go into university and get into their molecular biology programs. Your life will revolve around work, eating and sleeping, in that order of priority.

 

[Gloomsta]

It depends where you put in the hardwork and if its necessary.

Working more hours to buy a luxury car? Waste of time.

Working hard to play an instrument? Good use of time.

This sort of sums it up.

You could be a very talented guitarist but without the practice you'll never really develop all the skills needed to play like a master. On the surface this would seem like a very good example of hard work paying off as you should be recognised easily as brilliant at what you do.

Now, you want to use your talent to make money. This is where the line becomes blurred. You could spend long hours trying to get gigs and exposure but your whole life could go buy and you never really make it big. However, someone with half your skill and talent gets a break because they happened to be in the right club one night or they knew someone in the industry. Now, they're not a bad guitarist but you are still the superior musician. Did the hard work pay off then?

I'm a little jaded and sore about this kind of thing. I was always a believer in working hard and you'll get your thanks but the company I work for at the moment doesn't dance to that tune. If your face fits, kiss the right ass or kick up enough of a fuss you get what you want. I know more than my superiors about the company and how it needs to be run but I'm still seen as the bottom grunt on the ladder.

On a lighter note, I love creative writing and I used to do it all the time. I guess that honed my skills enough to start winning accolades and competitions.

Shame I gave it up when the ones who praised me for it and encouraged me down that path then told me it would never get me anywhere in life and I needed to think of developing skills for a "real job". Oops, burst the lighter note moment there!

Working hard to be a master of a guitar is diffrent to working hard to make it big.

Making it big is alot more complex than being good at guitar, you say luck may be needed, but so is personality, and it also depends on your approach, if you wanto play Death Metal i wouldnt expect much from it, however being in an indie band could get you further, and this is only if your riding the scene, being innovative or getting to be a classic is even more difficult and complex. It also requires you to believe in yourself, the mind has great power, and if you believe you can make it and want to make it and try to make it then you may get somewhere.
There is alot more worth to trying and believe in yourself then not trying at all and settling for some idea of financial safety, which isnt the best option for the soul.

You have to work hard for the right things, an artist who works hard bu refuses to do some work with more commercial art because of some silly self righteousness will not make it as far. You still require to be smart with your descisions so that the hard work pays off.

As for luck, i dont let it get to my head, i have been fortunate enough not to be born into hunger, not to have any serious disease and to still be alive, so you cant complain about luck here.

You have been lucky enough to recieve the luck for being able to read and write and its something you good at, where as other people have no education at all.

 

[babinro]

I'd say life is more about connections with the right people rather than genuine hard work.

I've known tons of lower end entry level workers who perform better than upper management. That's not to say work ethic doesn't play a role...it's just not the deciding factor.

 

[Daveman]

From what I can tell success is one third hard work, one third talent and one third sheer luck/nepotism.

If anything is wrong with that it's probably that luck doesn't contribute enough.

 

[Terramax]

So never once have I tried or learned something that I found initially difficult, because I just feel like "well if I'm not good at it now, a lot of practicing probably won't make a huge difference.."

Indeed, I have a close friend who's like this. He can pick up a great many hobbies at a drop of a hat, and get very far with them. But it causes him several problems. Firstly, he grows tired of these hobbies very quickly because there's no challenge and secondly, if he sees someone doing something better than him, he's incredibly competitive and he's lost a great many friends for taking it far too personally.

Also, like you, if he doesn't get something straight away, he often doesn't try hard to improve.

So, for discussion value, as well as some encouragement for me, what is something for you that started out really difficult, but that you got really good at through practice?

For me, pretty much every job I've ever had, no matter how simple, is a sharp learning curve for me, and I fall down many times before I pick things up and get to the standard of everyone else.

I've always hated this, but over the last few years I've come to take pride in that, anything I achieve, I've had to take lots of harsh criticism, embarressment, and have some serious perseverance and determination to get to where I am. I also take criticism and embarressment less to heart as I used to now that I'm used to it.

 

[SuperSuperSuperGuy]

Just recently I came to realize, I've never believed in the concept of 'hard work pays off'. Now, I am a quite intelligent person, to the point where I was always the person who could pay absolutely no attention to half the class, yet still ace all the tests. But I think this fact may have simply caused me to have little motivation to actually 'TRY' to succeed, because I've always just 'got it', now I just kinda feel under the idea that either you succeed in something or you don't, and most actual effort put into trying to succeed will only have a negligible effect. So never once have I tried or learned something that I found initially difficult, because I just feel like "well if I'm not good at it now, a lot of practicing probably won't make a huge difference.."

Buddy, I'm the exact same way. Hard work has rarely ever actually paid off for me and I'm almost always beaten by someone with natural talent for things, even if I'm far more experienced. My experiences in life have led me to believe that you're good at something or you're not. This, combined with my confidence issues, makes me feel like there's no point in ever trying because no matter how hard you work there's always going to be someone better. There's always going to be someone who far surpasses you with less work. I'm envious of those people...

 

[xXGeckoXx]

If you are in college, either you are taking community college or you are in intro level courses at your school because both of them are utter tripe. It will get harder, much harder.

Hard work for the sake of hard work is what sheep do. Don't do that. Nothing which is worthwhile was ever accomplished without hard work. Even if you want to con people out of their money, you still need to work hard to be an excellent con artist to amass your wealth.

Hugely depends on subject. If you are taking science or engineering prepare to work your ass off and when you are not working going to find places to work that are not part of college so that you will have connections later.

No, sir. I disagree. Achieving anything that's worth anything even in the Arts will require people to work their asses off.

I'm doing a double major in Finance and in Philology (study of languages), and believe you me, French 101 is kicking my ass despite the best of my efforts.

But, yeah, most of the time people do the Liberal Arts because it's easier, without realizing that just as much hard work if anything is to be accomplished. It's true for me, at least.

You know what you are right. It's like high-school kids picking bio as a science because they think it is the easy one.

 

[Crimson Butterfly]

Spoiler: -Snip-

It depends where you put in the hardwork and if its necessary.

Working more hours to buy a luxury car? Waste of time.

Working hard to play an instrument? Good use of time.

This sort of sums it up.

You could be a very talented guitarist but without the practice you'll never really develop all the skills needed to play like a master. On the surface this would seem like a very good example of hard work paying off as you should be recognised easily as brilliant at what you do.

Now, you want to use your talent to make money. This is where the line becomes blurred. You could spend long hours trying to get gigs and exposure but your whole life could go buy and you never really make it big. However, someone with half your skill and talent gets a break because they happened to be in the right club one night or they knew someone in the industry. Now, they're not a bad guitarist but you are still the superior musician. Did the hard work pay off then?

I'm a little jaded and sore about this kind of thing. I was always a believer in working hard and you'll get your thanks but the company I work for at the moment doesn't dance to that tune. If your face fits, kiss the right ass or kick up enough of a fuss you get what you want. I know more than my superiors about the company and how it needs to be run but I'm still seen as the bottom grunt on the ladder.

On a lighter note, I love creative writing and I used to do it all the time. I guess that honed my skills enough to start winning accolades and competitions.

Shame I gave it up when the ones who praised me for it and encouraged me down that path then told me it would never get me anywhere in life and I needed to think of developing skills for a "real job". Oops, burst the lighter note moment there!

Working hard to be a master of a guitar is diffrent to working hard to make it big.

Making it big is alot more complex than being good at guitar, you say luck may be needed, but so is personality, and it also depends on your approach, if you wanto play Death Metal i wouldnt expect much from it, however being in an indie band could get you further, and this is only if your riding the scene, being innovative or getting to be a classic is even more difficult and complex. It also requires you to believe in yourself, the mind has great power, and if you believe you can make it and want to make it and try to make it then you may get somewhere.
There is alot more worth to trying and believe in yourself then not trying at all and settling for some idea of financial safety, which isnt the best option for the soul.

You have to work hard for the right things, an artist who works hard bu refuses to do some work with more commercial art because of some silly self righteousness will not make it as far. You still require to be smart with your descisions so that the hard work pays off.

As for luck, i dont let it get to my head, i have been fortunate enough not to be born into hunger, not to have any serious disease and to still be alive, so you cant complain about luck here.

You have been lucky enough to recieve the luck for being able to read and write and its something you good at, where as other people have no education at all.

Yes, I was condensing to a great extent with what I said. There is always a lot more at play. I was trying to stress that, as I see it, it's not a black/white question and can be split into so many shades of grey. It also differs as to what point a person thinks their hard work has paid off.

At my point in life and with what I've lived I'm leaning more to the fact connections are the more relevant thing. We will always be luckier than someone and less fortunate than someone and pay off is always relative on an individual basis.

 

[Agayek]

"Hard work pays off" is actually true, even while you're still working on your education. I was one of the smart students myself, and I breezed through just about everything... up to the point I was half-way through my engineering degree. At that point, it became exceedingly clear that raw talent can only get you so far; the reasons are definite. Hypothetically, anyone can do the stuff we're doing; however, we're learning how to do them well. Experience is looking to be one of the biggest assets once we get into the industry, as you're never supposed to stop learning.

At this time, I'm fairly convinced that no one can go through an engineering degree program without putting their time in. Just about everyone in my classes is rather intelligent, and many (if not most) of them could be called borderline workaholics; staying on campus late to do work is very common. Speaking of which, the little Timmy's corner shop is probably making a fortune off the entire faculty's coffee addiction.

I managed to get a good engineering degree with very little in the way of actual work on my school work.

That said, hard work certainly pays off. The thing to keep in mind, though, is that the payoff is not necessarily financial. If you're looking to make money, it's almost certainly who you know, rather than what.

Hard work pays off at making you good at what you do. It can help you make money, but it's not likely. Pride and confidence are worth a lot though, and that's what hard work will get you.

 

[HardkorSB]

Just recently I came to realize, I've never believed in the concept of 'hard work pays off'. Now, I am a quite intelligent person, to the point where I was always the person who could pay absolutely no attention to half the class, yet still ace all the tests. But I think this fact may have simply caused me to have little motivation to actually 'TRY' to succeed, because I've always just 'got it', now I just kinda feel under the idea that either you succeed in something or you don't, and most actual effort put into trying to succeed will only have a negligible effect. So never once have I tried or learned something that I found initially difficult, because I just feel like "well if I'm not good at it now, a lot of practicing probably won't make a huge difference.."

I'm beginning to see that this is probably a harmful mindset for me to have. I would like to learn another language, I would like to learn little skills, etc. So, for discussion value, as well as some encouragement for me, what is something for you that started out really difficult, but that you got really good at through practice?

Aimless hard work is pointless. If you're just going to work hard for the sake of working hard then you'll overwork yourself.
However, if you have a clear goal and you know how to reach that goal then the harder you work to reach it, the faster you'll get there. That is even more true if there are other people who want the same thing as you do. The more competition, the harder you have to work.

it can, but it doesn't have to. know the right people, kiss the right asses, and you can do better than someone who busts his honest ass with the hardest work.

take it from a girl who works less than 10 hours a week^^

OK, first of all, kissing asses is hard work as well. Pretending to like and care about the people you hate, having to maintain a good impression, sacrificing your dignity etc. Isn't that also hard work?
Plus, there's always a bigger ass kisser than you. Once that person shows up, you'll really need to step your game up, otherwise you'll lose your position. Especially if you're in that position purely because of the ass kissing and you have no skills to back it up.

Something i often see as a key point in the american dream is that harderwork = more pay/reward. This is so untrue its not even funny. Case and point everything said above. You can pull 4 jobs and barely eat while a CEO can inherit a company and sit on his arse all day paying his workers starvation wages because the terrible job market prevents them from leaving.

yyyyyeah...
In that case, you just wait for that company you're going to inherit while I'll work for it and we'll see who comes out with more.

i've found that out in the real world, it's MUCH less about WHAT you know, and really more about WHO you know... i am another guy that learned far faster than his peers, but as a result i got incredibly bored and never really did any work in school, but still knew the material... i worked hard for several years at my job, and no that i'm no longer in school i find it's borderline IMPOSSIBLE to find work... hell, in the last 2 years, i've applied to countless places and only gotten ONE callback... and i'm more qualified then some of the people they ALREADY have working... so no... i'm inclined to believe that hard work DOSN'T pay off... EVER... at least, not in a normal person's lifestyle... sure, a lot of hard "work" (because it's actually play) has allowed me to be very good at games, but has working at really anything (including games) really ever netted me anything worthwhile in the real world? no...

to ADD to my argument... there's that one FedEx (i think it's FedEx) commercial, where the employee is talking to his boss about why he chose to ship with company X when FedEx is so obviously superior. and his boss replies that it's because he's an idiot, and so are many people at the top (including HIS boss) and sadly, i think that that is MUCH more true than the adage of "hard work allows you to rise to the top" i mean... hell.. look at Bush Jr... it's pretty much unanimous that he's a grade A dumbass and HE was elected president... TWICE... can you honestly tell me hard work had anything to do with his "success"? (if you can call it that...) i'd say no... and i'm inclined to believe that MANY MANY others agree with me...

(and if someone can find that commercial on YouTube or something that'd be GREEAT... *sips coffee*)

(bonus points if you got the movie reference)

Oh god... where do I start?
As I've said, aimless hard work won't get you anywhere. You need to know what you want and start working towards it, not just work.
About Bush, he had a legion of people working very hard to get him in the White House... and it worked.

 

[Kathinka]

hat first point is how it should be. alas, it is not.
i custom make jewelry for snobby, uptight rich people (of wich i hope non are reading the escapist^^). it's pretty, expensive, and actually completely useless, and not even hard work or very difficult. everyone with some skill in fine crafts could to what i do. and yet i earn more than a scientist who sacrifices every bit of personal life in order to find a cure for cancer.

i wouldn't say earning money without contribution to production or society is 'morally ambiguous'. it's taking advantage of the circumstances in an unfair world. if that's morally ambiguous, i don't know..

What you describe here isn't 'kissing ass' or knowing people.

It's the production of a scarce product. Which is high on the labor factor (labor includes technical expertise) and as such it economically speaking is hard work (by virtue of being producing a lot, measured by it's monetary value, through labor), even if you do not experience it as such. Technical expertise is a contribution to production.

And if everyone could do what you did it, by economic logic, wouldn't be a scarce product.

I fully realize that there's more to the world then just economics. But even then I wouldn't describe what you're doing as 'kissing ass' or knowing people.

well, kissing ass and knowing people brought me in the position where people will come to me instead of someone else if they want some special ring with this particular gem x made for their wedding.
and of course you have to have a certain skillset and training to do it. but it really isn't all that hard. essentially what i'm trying to say is that the profits are disproportionally high for what i do.
i still maintain the standpoint that hard work certainly doesn't hurt, but it unfortunately isn't as important as it should be. that's just wishfull thinking of all the hard working people. god knows it should be like that though.

i by the way understand and respect your standpoint, i don't want to argue and i don't want to sound impolite or snappy. i'm sorry if i was obnoxious or something, i just was a little short on time and thus wrote only in this pretty short form. i really don't mean anything bad or disrespectful by it.

 

[FURY_007]

Eh, it's all about the application of hard work,and how you measure the reward. In high-school I barely worked hard at my classes, but in theater I worked my ass off as stage-crew and the director recognized that I knew the different aspects of theater really well, i.e blocking, pacing, etc. that she made me assistant director, and that was hellafun and interesting. When I tried out for a play senior year, she knew I worked hard, knew what to do, and so she gave me one of the leads. i wasn't one of the best actors, but she said if I worked on it, I could keep it, and so I worked at it, and became a good actor as a result. I'm in college now, and how much I get out of classes is how hard I work at them. Despite knowing a lot of history already, i still learn a lot cause I work to keep up with the material and do the assignments.

BUT in the working world, I'm still in college, and looked for a job so hard, following up like 6-7 times for about 9 different places, and the only place I did get a job is at the UPS Store where the owner was a neighbor of mine. He hired my brother like yer before but my brother didn't do well and so he fired him, and so that was my expectation: Work hard and well, or you're fired. As a result, I worked hard, learned pretty much everything I could to do well, and he recognized my efforts and since I started, I've gotten like 4 raises, and now I pretty much run the place when he's not around

 

[annilator666]

it can, but it doesn't have to. know the right people, kiss the right asses, and you can do better than someone who busts his honest ass with the hardest work.

take it from a girl who works less than 10 hours a week^^

i prefer to work not kiss ass

 

[Giest4life]

If you are in college, either you are taking community college or you are in intro level courses at your school because both of them are utter tripe. It will get harder, much harder.

Hard work for the sake of hard work is what sheep do. Don't do that. Nothing which is worthwhile was ever accomplished without hard work. Even if you want to con people out of their money, you still need to work hard to be an excellent con artist to amass your wealth.

Hugely depends on subject. If you are taking science or engineering prepare to work your ass off and when you are not working going to find places to work that are not part of college so that you will have connections later.

No, sir. I disagree. Achieving anything that's worth anything even in the Arts will require people to work their asses off.

I'm doing a double major in Finance and in Philology (study of languages), and believe you me, French 101 is kicking my ass despite the best of my efforts.

But, yeah, most of the time people do the Liberal Arts because it's easier, without realizing that just as much hard work if anything is to be accomplished. It's true for me, at least.

You know what you are right. It's like high-school kids picking bio as a science because they think it is the easy one.

Not following you there at all.

 

[Alandoril]

Well, if you're talking about minimum wage work, then no hard work does not pay off.

If you're talking about scamming nations out of an absolute fortune by gambling on the stock markets and ruining economies...then yeah, hard work does pay off.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

yyyyyeah...
In that case, you just wait for that company you're going to inherit while I'll work for it and we'll see who comes out with more.

Alright. Im not going to inherit anything. I do work hard. Im not sure where i came into this at all to be honest. Im not sure you read what i said correctly...

Work as hard as you can for the rest of your life. Get a car. Drive down to the country club where the old monies sons play golf and eat fancy food despite never working a day in their lives. Go find rich spoiled teenage children. They WILL have more than you. They WILL have done no work. You have to accept that hardwork does NOT = pay directly. Sure it has a good effect, hard work does pay off to an extent. But im here pulling a few jobs just to afford heating and television. While some rich old money has everything he needs because he had money, connections and corperate ins right from the get go allowing him to turn his 1 billion into 2 billion while i work my ass off to get 64 thousand pounds in debt going to uni to get a degree for a job thats likely not to hire me and if they do i wont get paid much. Im going into medical research. You cannot tell me that is fair. You cannot. Its just wrong.

Who worked harder, slaves or slave owners. Who was richer? Please read about the poor job market forcing us to work for lower wages because we fear if we try and leave for better chances are we will get nothing. At least address my points.

 

[Alandoril]

it can, but it doesn't have to. know the right people, kiss the right asses, and you can do better than someone who busts his honest ass with the hardest work.

take it from a girl who works less than 10 hours a week^^

Hard work still pays off. It's just not your hard work that's paying you off, but somebody else's.

One should either make sure that the pay-off for their hard work ends up with them or, if one doesn't mind some moral ambiguity, make sure the pay-off for someone else's hard work ends up with them.

also not neccessarely. there is not always hard work involved, by no one. i don't have any workers under me, i'm an artisan with a one-person-company.

most people don't want to hear it, but hard work doesn't always pay. it doesn't do any harm, sure. but it doesnt neccessarely help. the world simply isn't fair. it mostly comes down to luck.

Quite necessarily, that's what most modern economies are based on: a direct relation between one's contribution to production (be it capital, labor, natural resources etc.) and one's monetary gain.

'ass-kissing' and knowing people aren't factors of production and as such aren't 'supposed' (in a fair world that is...) to have a monetary gain associated to them. Any monetary gain that does come from them is thus necessarily diverted from another's contribution to production.

But as you say, the world isn't fair. I personally don't mind at all how you earn your money, I'm more concerned about how I'll earn my own. But while I wouldn't say that knowing people and profiting from that is necessarily bad it's definitely in the morally ambiguous territory.

that first point is how it should be. alas, it is not.
i custom make jewelry for snobby, uptight rich people (of wich i hope non are reading the escapist^^). it's pretty, expensive, and actually completely useless, and not even hard work or very difficult. everyone with some skill in fine crafts could to what i do. and yet i earn more than a scientist who sacrifices every bit of personal life in order to find a cure for cancer.

i wouldn't say earning money without contribution to production or society is 'morally ambiguous'. it's taking advantage of the circumstances in an unfair world. if that's morally ambiguous, i don't know..

Yes, that is morally ambiguous. In fact, it's one of the main elements that help to make the entire capitalist way of life morally ambiguous.

Although, kudos for getting rich people to spend money on such things.

 

[HardkorSB]

Work as hard as you can for the rest of your life. Get a car. Drive down to the country club where the old monies sons play golf and eat fancy food despite never working a day in their lives. Go find rich spoiled teenage children. They WILL have more than you. They WILL have done no work. You have to accept that hardwork does NOT = pay directly. Sure it has a good effect, hard work does pay off to an extent. But im here pulling a few jobs just to afford heating and television. While some rich old money has everything he needs because he had money, connections and corperate ins right from the get go allowing him to turn his 1 billion into 2 billion while i work my ass off to get 64 thousand pounds in debt going to uni to get a degree for a job thats likely not to hire me and if they do i wont get paid much. Im going into medical research. You cannot tell me that is fair. You cannot. Its just wrong.

Who worked harder, slaves or slave owners. Who was richer? Please read about the poor job market forcing us to work for lower wages because we fear if we try and leave for better chances are we will get nothing. At least address my points.

What you're doing is convincing yourself of your own ideas, making them true...for you.
The The part I've highlighted is where most problems lie - you just don't believe in your own success.

These spoiled rich kids? Someone somewhere along the way had to work for that money. It didn't just appear out of nowhere. That person managed to get so much that the next generations could live good lives without doing anything.
Also, as I've said 2 times in my post, aimless work is pointless. Once you know what you want and how to get it, then it's time to work hard in that direction. I'm doing that and guess what... I'm getting positive results. Sitting on my ass and trying to convince myself that it's impossible to succeed without having a head start does nothing for me (plus it's not true). I rather do something about my own situation than cry about how unfair it is.

If I would, from tomorrow, stop doing all the things I do in my spare time and concentrated on making money AND ONLY making money for 10 years straight, put all my effort into making as much as I possibly can, neglecting other aspects of my life, I could become rich (even if you think that I couldn't). I'm not going to do that. Why? Because I like the things that I do in my spare time. Plus, these things will also contribute to my future success. For over a decade, I used to fool around doing all sorts of different activities just for fun. I worked hard at them because I loved doing them and wanted to be better at them. Within that decade, I've become quite an expert at some of them. So much so that many new paths have appeared before me. Paths that I wouldn't even consider and that would be impossible for me to follow if I hadn't put all that effort into polishing my skills. Now, all I have to do is to think of to where I want to be in the future and follow 1 of the available paths to get there. Once I'm there, other paths will appear and I'll have the opportunity to choose again... and so on, and so forth.
You also need to remember that you will fail on the way and that you'll just have to learn from your mistakes and keep on trying. Once you've decided that it's impossible, then it becomes impossible.

I hope that explains a few things.