It’s true, isn’t it, that success is desired by all. However, to achieve it in any endeavour, from marriage to a career, university degree, beautiful garden, or clean living accommodation, takes uphill effort. According to John Maxwell (a leading leadership trainer) the trouble with this struggle is that so many of us have high uphill hopes, but too many destructive downhill habits.
There’s another problem as well, and that is the expectation that once you achieve a measure of success in any field, you will be able to relax and take it easy. This is a fallacy that leads straight back downhill. Just think of an airplane: it takes a tremendous amount of energy and power to reach its flying level—and at that point, does the pilot turn the power off? Of course not. No more can you in your success journey, not if you want to continue to enjoy your hard-earned success. Just as a newly-weeded garden has to be weeded again and again in order to stay weed-free, your freshly-achieved success will not remain in place without ongoing effort. It’s like that with everything, including your career: just because you’ve finally attained a corner office on the 50th floor, don’t think you’ve reached the time in your life when you can relax and let up on the effort.
Let’s take a look at some downhill habits that stand in the way of achievement. Procrastination is one: you need to replace a do-it-tomorrow attitude with a do-it-now attitude if you want to succeed. Poor punctuality, defensive reactions to criticism, and ducking responsibility are also downhill habits, along with sloppiness and a tendency to refuse any task that isn’t in your job description. All of these are part of the easy, no-effort way that leads downhill. And you can probably think of other downhill habits.
All success is an uphill climb, a climb that will never end. There is no easy way to achieve it or retain it. Those who want success but do not give it the needed effort are doomed to continue walking in the dust of those who do.
And may the Lord our God show us his approval and make our efforts successful. Yes, make our efforts successful! –Psalm 90:17
