Hate To Break This To You, But Talent Is Not Going To Get You Anywhere

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Talent alone is not going to get you anywhere. No one is going to walk up to you and offer you your dream career. You have to work your ass off in order to discover success.

You have to be passionate about what you are doing. If you hate the field you have chosen, then you are going to get bored and start slacking. You are not going to put in your full potential because you will not see the point. You will eventually lose focus, say fuck it, and find a new way to make money.

You have to be dedicated to your craft. You have to be persistent. You have to be reliable. You have to develop a schedule and stick to it. You cannot give up halfway through a project. You cannot jump from one thing to the next, leaving a trail of uncompleted tasks. You have to develop a routine. You have to enforce self-discipline.

You have to have faith you are going to succeed. You have to keep chugging along, even on the days when you are questioning whether you have what it takes. You have to find motivation on the days when you would rather sleep an extra few hours until it’s time to grab drinks with your friends. You have to believe in yourself, even when the rest of the world is doubting you.

You have to stay humble. You cannot become lazy. You cannot assume you are better than everyone else in your field, which means you only have to do half of the work. You cannot get overconfident. You cannot let your cockiness convince you to stop putting in the hours, stop giving it your all, stop trying to get ahead. You cannot decide you are too good to do what everyone else has been doing. You cannot assume you are going to get anything handed to you.

You have to make a commitment. You have to promise yourself you are going to reach your end goal. You cannot procrastinate. You cannot get distracted by every text. You cannot get discouraged by every speed bump. You cannot spend your nights making excuses about why you wasted your mornings. You have to do what you swore you would do. You have to follow through.

You have to have patience. You are not going to achieve your dreams overnight. You might not even achieve them over the course of months or years. You cannot throw a fit when your milestones take longer to reach than you planned. You have to be happy you are moving forward, even if you are moving slowly. You have to look on the bright side and be happy you are making progress, even when it feels like you are falling behind.

Your talent matters — but only if you work your ass off. Only if you put in the work. Otherwise, no one is going to care about how gifted you are. No one is even going to know.