Work Ethic

Go Big or Go Home!!!

“Work ethic is a state of mind.“

Let’s talk about something real quick.

South Africa’s unemployment rate rose to a new record high of 32.6% in the first quarter of 2021. Statistics South Africa put the number of unemployed at 7.242 million people by the end of March, up from 7.233 million people from the previous quarter. You may ask yourself what this has to do with work ethic meanwhile people do not have jobs. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You may ask yourself why am I mentioning it if it has no relevance to the title of the blog, well, I may have an answer for that. Work ethic has nothing to with having employment or not. In fact, work ethic is a state of mind that keeps one productive through discipline, concentration, intelligence and unfathomable optimism.

I talk of a state of mind because everything starts with your mind. It is the most powerful weapon that you have in your arsenal. The mind has the ability to take you to places that you could only dream of. It has the ability to transform your entire reality. A weak mind will never survive in today’s world, meanwhile, a powerful mind embraces every challenge of today as an opportunity to thrive. Having the proper state of mind, no, having the proper work ethic towards yourself through your mind is key to ensure that you secure a better future. This has nothing to do with whether you have employment or not. But rather, it has everything to do with your mindset and the ability to position yourself from where you are to where you want to be.

The question now becomes, how do you train your mind to have the proper work ethic.

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1. Time Management

Respecting your time and another person’s time is a priority that we can not avoid when we are discussing work ethic.

It is important to be consciously aware of what/who your time is being spent. And how much of that time spent will prove to be fruitful for you in the future. Why spend your time on something that is not beneficial for your health, does not make you money, does not make you happy or does not bring you peace? That is time waste.

Time Management is a discipline that requires constant testing and practice. It requires training the mind to not laze around and accommodate certain things that are not beneficial. Employers do this to their employees often now that majority of people are working from home due to Covid-19. If you are working from home, you will be on a Skype or MS Teams meeting every other hour. You will be on an emergency call for extended periods of time. The workload will be so intense that you have to put in unpaid extra hours (they, of course do not say this because that is an admission of guilt, malpractice and misconduct). Work-life balance is expunged. And if they do pay you, it’s below minimum wage. This, might be harmful to you as the employee, but it’s good for business, and you still have a job.

Check out out previous article on Surviving a toxic work environment

Let’s look at one of the most successful people’s daily routine:

Elon Musk:

His daily routine can be summed up as work, eat, sleep, and family time with work taking up a bulk of that time. Bedtime for him is around 12am, typically wakes up at 6am, getting 6 to 6.5 hours of sleep. And never forgets his shower and morning coffee. This is a man that clocked 120 hours per week consistently. What is the reward for such exceptional effort and discipline? $147.3 Billion and a very successful company. Work ethic: a state of mind that keeps one productive through discipline, concentration, intelligence and unfathomable optimism.

How to improve your time management:

1. Have a daily routine set out for a week/month with tasks and activities.
2. Configure the time spent on each activity
3. Diarise each activity and set reminders on your cellphone
4. Prioritize your sleep
5. Leave no room for an undocumented time of day
6. Respect the time frame

Understandably, this might be a robotic type of lifestyle but in truth, it is more about rebuilding structure and order into your life. Procrastination will now be a thing of the past. Prioritization of yourself, the people around you and your tasks is the foundation of your character.

You are unemployed or just lost your job. What are you going to do? Will you sit around moping and stressing all day about how you have just lost your job? Are you going to worry about how there are bills to pay that you can not afford? Or are you going to come up with an actual plan? It’s all a choice. And honestly, if you have bills to pay and people who depend on you, the former of those options is not a choice that you can afford to make… Literally. Your mind should not have room to dwindle on negative thoughts.

So get up and dust yourself off. Start with improving your time management so that you can have a sense of direction, structure and purpose of what your next move will be. Start rebuilding yourself and your character. Learn new things about yourself and explore new ventures.

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2.Diligence

Imagine doing something that you have never done before only one time and expecting everything to miraculously play out beautifully. Like marketing a brand for a single day and waking up the next morning a millionaire. That would be great actually, but unfortunately, life is no fairy tale. Everything has a process. And like every process, things do not always go accordingly or as envisioned because a process is a series of steps and decisions involved in the way work is completed.

Even a gymnast would tell you that consistency is key to losing weight or gaining muscle. That’s the process of getting your body into the shape that you want it to be. This universal law is the same for everything else. A successful process requires renowned consistency and considerable effort — Diligence. So, too does your work ethic because the aim is to achieve a state of mind that keeps one productive through discipline, concentration, intelligence and unfathomable optimism. When things get tough, giving up is not an option. It is an opportunity to do better. We all know that you have a lot more in the tank than you are putting out, but pace yourself. We don’t want you to burnout.

How to practice Diligence:

1. Use your time efficiently
2. Keep yourself organized
3. Be your own inspiration
4. Set accomplishable goals for yourself
5. Be relentless in your actions and activities
6. Stay smart emotionally and intellectually otherwise
7. Balance out your lifestyle with exercise, fun and activities – stay refreshed

Consistency will be the key factor that ties everything together with your time management. Your mindset will gradually start to shift to a space of having proper work ethic as a norm. Thus, in every situation or environment that you are put into, you will always be a star.

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3. Be Creative

Innovation and creativity is what drives the future. Looking at any successful business today, the only reason why they remain profitable and survive through trying times is by being innovative and creative. We look at Amazon, for example, they became successful after Y2K because they saw the need for fast reliable courier servicing at a time when digitization of the modern world was still at its infant stage. We only saw the rise in its fame because we suddenly identified the need to not go shopping when we can get things delivered at our doorsteps through our smartphones. They saw this shift in human behavior long before it actually happened.

They are still improving. That’s what makes them so special. However, let us also give credit to Amazon for introducing us to, and accustoming us to, a way of doing things that is just more convenient in our daily lives. This is innovation and creativity. What does this have to do with work ethic?

1.

Thinking differently and doing things differently against the norm and status quo is the cornerstone of work ethic. There is always a smarter way of getting the job done. There are ways a better and easier way of resolving a problem. Our work ethic is driven by these methods, that some might even call trade secrets. We often hear people talk about “think outside the box” but they never really tell us nor show us how to do so. Which is false and condescending. One needs to train the mind to attain such a skill because not everyone has organic intelligence. And some people are better and efficient in different things. The world is too quick to judge a fish for not being able to fly, and it one of the things that is killing society.

2.

Without any creativity, there would be little progress. We would probably still be stuck in the ages of the telegram. Remember, work ethic is a state of mind that keeps one productive through discipline, concentration, intelligence and unfathomable optimism. A person with a strong work ethic will never settle for doing the same thing the same way over and over again. That’s madness. Their state of mind will always propel them to new ventures and or ways of completing a task better. That is innovation and creativity. The ability to envision something that does not exist and turn it into reality. This, however, is not possible without proper work ethic elevating you to being the master of your turf.

Characteristics of creativity:

1. The willingness to be different
2. Positive attitude
3. Taking calculated risks and daring to fail
4. Curiosity
5. Motivation and determination

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4. Optimism

You are always winning. Even when you are losing, you are winning. Even when things are not going your way, you are, in fact, thriving. This may sound far from the truth because you may be dwelling on the current situation, and not actually taking the moment to learn so that you can improve and do better next time. This is understandable. We are programmed to dwell onto the negative perception of reality. This negativity and pessimism leads to discouragement, quitting, lackluster attitudes and mediocre performances. It is also understandable that the wrong hand is dealt to us from time to time. This takes nothing away from allowing one to express themselves, nor the opportunity to feel what is meant to be felt.

The world is an oyster of limitless opportunities and access to infinite information. A proper work ethic makes it overwhelmingly simple to be successful, however optimism is an attitude and a choice. It involves great concentration and purpose. We are not deluding ourselves with the reassurance that everything is going to be okay, instead, it is a commitment to finding things we can contribute to, work on and improve. When time passes, and all the efforts, hard work and determination pays off, the celebration is worth every single moment.

So let’s build on that work ethic. Go big or go home.