Sometimes It’s About The Effort

This week’s post is inspired by a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald who said, “I never blame failure – there are too many complicated situations in life – but I am absolutely merciless towards lack of effort.”

I love the aqua aerobics sessions at my local gym and enjoy watching what goes on in the pool. Quite often I see people cut corners to reduce the effort they put in.

The instructor would tell us to exercise round the length of the pool and I observe people cross midway to avoid going down the full length. Later on some will comment about not seeing the level of results they hoped for and I think, ‘duh.’

F. Scott Fitzgerald got it right when he said there are too many complications in life that can contribute to any failures we experience but we must rule out a lack of effort on our part.

We need to always ask, ‘Was effort missing?’

So the question today is, ‘what efforts are you putting in to the things that truly matter?

What efforts are you putting in to your family life, parenting and marriage? What efforts are you putting in to your career or business? What efforts are you putting in to your relationships – with God and man?

What efforts are you putting into seeing your workplace, community or nation transformed?

There have been times in my life when I have missed deadlines because I did not put in the right type or level of effort into what I was doing.

Some of the pressures we feel in many areas of our lives are due to a lack of preparation and us not putting in the effort in time to meet the commitments.

Efforts costs us time, commitments and comfort so we can find procrastination, excuses and apathy rear their heads at critical moments in life.

Key words to bear in mind when it comes to effort are:

Timing of the effort

There is a right time to put in effort if you want certain outcomes. Parenting and careers are great examples for this.

There’s a right time to set the right foundation for children, define the principles and mindsets we want them to live by. If we don’t put the effort in at the right time, the window of opportunity is missed.

There’s a right time to get the qualification you need for your next career move and that time is now.

Quality of the effort

What is the quality of the effort you are putting in to the things that matter? Are your attempts whole or half hearted?

The quality of your outcome is directly proportional to the quality of the effort that went in.

Take time to honestly assess the quality of the effort you are putting into all aspects of your life. Before you give up or complain, have you put in the right type of effort?

Amount of the effort

Final question is how much effort have you put in? Some projects will require minimal effort while others will require a lot more effort than we are used to.

We must assess every scenario and each season to determine what the right level of effort is.

There are some things that might have been easier for us to do while we were younger but would require more effort as we get older.

As we start another week, take time to reflect on some key initiatives and ask the question – are the efforts I’m putting in the right amount, the right quality and at the right time?

Thank you for reading my post. Please like, comment and share with others. Have a great week.