In recent years, the idea has emerged that as long as you work hard enough, you can achieve anything and all goals are achievable. Research by the Swedish psychologist Ericsson has shown that mastery and rising above mediocrity is achieved through more than 10,000 hours/10 years of conscious practice (Ericsson, 1993). This idea was spread by Malcom Gladwell in his book Outliers and popularized as the 10,000 hour rule. However, after meta-analyses, this turned out to be more nuanced: the number of practice hours required varies enormously and many mediocre performers have many more hours than the elite. In addition, the number of hours of deliberate practice would only explain about a third of the difference in performance and there are therefore other factors that explain the difference than the number of hours/years of deliberate practice (Hambrick, et al., 2014). The hypothesis is that natural/innate skills and environmental factors are an important variable that make up a large part. Working hard for success must therefore be nuanced.
The myth that we can all become successful and achieve our dreams if we work hard enough is harmful because it is not true. Before people discover this hard truth, they invest years of time and energy pursuing their goals. When they then don't achieve the goal and the cultural norm states that it is their own fault and they should have worked harder, that is what leads to stress, burnout and depression. Working for five or ten years on something you don't like or find important and then failing is a doomsday scenario that becomes reality for many people. The problem is that people forget the factor of chance. If I am born into poverty, there is a good chance that I will live in poverty for a lifetime. If I don't grow taller than 1.70 meters, I can train as hard as I want, the chance that I will become a professional basketball player is nil. An effect that emphasizes the importance of chance is the 'birth month effect'. For example, among professional ice hockey players and football players we see that the majority were born in the first quarter of the year. Another example is Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was lucky at the time that his school happened to have one of the two (modern for that time) computers in the world and he had the time to practice on it. If Steve Jobs had been born in a different time or place, we wouldn't have known Steve Jobs and no one would have ever heard of Apple or a Macbook. It is clear that the factor of chance is often forgotten, but is of enormous importance.
In summary, the myth that if you work hard enough you can be successful is harmful and one of the causes that has contributed to the burnout epidemic, and a reason why vitality is so important. A more nuanced statement that comes closer to the truth is the statement: “Chance favors only the prepared mind” (by Louis Pasteur), or luck favors people who are prepared. When I work hard, am proactive and undertake a lot, I often find myself in situations where I can be lucky and successful.
An important concept to combat the myth is compassion. Compassion is accepting that everyone faces setbacks in life and it is now your turn. This is different from self-pity. Self-pity is characterized by the thought: why me? Why does the world always have to have me? Compassion is healthy and self-pity is unhealthy. To have compassion, two conditions must be met: hard work and honesty. If you can honestly say to yourself that you have worked hard, but you fail, then you can have compassion: I did my best, everyone has bad luck and now it is my turn. At Enforce we coach on vitality and it is valuable that we make people aware of the myth, we point out the role of chance and we work on being allowed to have compassion.
Remy Jean Le
Enforce Master Trainer
remyjean@enforce.nl
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