Below is a short article about relentless effort, and it’s worth the read if you consider yourself a student of success. This post is also an important message that many people need to hear in this day and age. Not because they don’t value the message, but because they’ve yet to have anyone instruct them on the merits of effort.
Without a doubt, a great amount of people have been lied to over the years. They’ve been told that success should be easy, that they can expect a better life merely because they demand one. In short, way too many people have yet to be exposed to one of the truest “secrets” of success. So, that’s what I’ll be touching on in this post. So, if you’re ready to learn about the true meaning of relentless effort and how embracing it can lead to more success, let’s dive in.
RELENTLESS EFFORT AND SUCCESS
When I was younger, I played sports. And I tried just about every one of them too; I tried basketball, baseball, track and field, you name it. However, out of all the sports I tried, my favorite sport ended up being football.
Now, I had some amazing mentors in the form of coaches in every sport. However, it was the coaches I had in football whose lesson’s would make the biggest impacts on me and my life.
So, how did these coaches go about doing this?
Well, these coaches ingrained in me and my teammates early on, an invaluable philosophy that revolved around character, integrity, team work, but most importantly…individual effort.
What Does Relentless Effort Mean?
However, before we go any further, let me quickly reveal exactly what relentless effort means so we are on the same page. Effort, by it’s very definition, is essentially a vigorous and determined attempt to achieve something. While relentless essentially means to be unceasing or to constantly applying.
Therefore, relentless effort ultimately means to be unceasing in one’s determined attempts to achieve something.
That said, our coaches would consistently communicate the importance of embracing mental toughness, which at it’s height, was a full out obsession with giving one’s all to a given end, all of the time.
They made it clear, that there was nothing more important then each player understanding that they were at all times obligated to always give every ounce of effort towards the execution of their individual responsibilities.
Their line of thinking was this; If you’re not willing to consistently give your best effort, how can you in good conscience, say you really want to win? How can you in good conscience say you deserve to win if you don’t?
And if you’re not willing to always do what’s right and do your best always, how can you say you’re a person of character and integrity? And lastly, if you’re not willing to give your best effort always and relentlessly, how can you honestly stand before your teammates, your tribe, your family, and say you truly have their back?
In short, they conveyed the following: relentless effort is everything.
The Magic of Relentless Effort
Now, there was this one year where our coaches philosophy culminated into the purchasing of a bunch of T-shirts with the letters MTXE printed across the front of them. And it was this bold Acronym that would effectively and succinctly sum up their philosophy.
“MTXE” stood for Mental Toughness Extra Effort.
Now, after investing in a ton of these shirts, the coaches gave one to each player on the team. And every player began to wear those shirts with pride. And as a result, each player began to embrace the philosophy of relentless effort as their own.
And not so surprisingly, the year my coaches did this, was the year our team, if by some stroke of magic, broke a 7-year losing streak; whereby we went on to beat some of the best teams in the state, won ourselves a district championship, only to be routed by a team that would become the eventual state champions, and the #1 ranked team in the country.
Was it the shirt that made the difference? Of course not.
However, what did make all the difference, was our team’s new focus and mindset.
We went from a team full of players who cared more about how cool they looked to their peers and the fans, to a team whose sole focus was on how much individual effort they could give to their role, and to a larger extent, their team.
As such, the DNA of our team changed almost overnight. And when we all fully embraced the value of effort, everything changed for us. To be sure, it was an eye-opening experience.
The Value of Effort
With that being said, and with my eyes having been opened from that early experience, I would also get taught the lesson of effort time and time again. During my early professional years, through extensive study, I would learn again from mentors, like Teddy Roosevelt, Jim Rohn, Earl Nightingale, Vince Lombardi, Robin Sharma, and Gary Vee, that effort is beyond valuable for seekers of success .
Of course, my education didn’t end there. The lessons of effort continued to grow for me as I attempted to emulate the effort levels of many professional athletes, the likes of Ray Lewis, Barry Sanders, Michael Jordan, Lebron James, …the Greats. And in doing so, what I realized was how powerful effort is in steering us towards the results we are after in life.
Such a philosophy has been integral to my past and continued successes in life. In every instance where I put in extraordinary levels of effort, I’ve always reaped amazing results.
Extra effort in my youth, led to me receiving multiple scholarship offers to play football for a handful of different schools.
When I added extra effort towards studying and prepping for the graduate entrance tests to get into a top university, I not only got admitted, but received multiple full-tuition paid fellowship offers.
“Effort is the Key to Unlocking Our Potential.”
When I put in the extra effort to create added value in the real estate I owned, I was able sell it for triple the value I purchased it for.
Similarly, the relentless effort I put in on the weekends and in my spare time to create side-hustle income on the internet always paid off as well.
And no, it was not right away, but slowly, gradually, assuredly, giving my best effort towards my goals has always paved the way.
Even while I was working for the man at a J.O.B. (of the many jobs I’ve held), full effort has always resulted in either a promotion or higher pay. Extra effort has been good to me.
In fact, I’d venture to say that applying extra effort will almost always provide you with results in equal proportion to the levels of effort you applied. And if you are in control of your effort, you are in control of your results. It truly is the best ingredient of success.
In other words, quality is never an accident. And the same can be said for getting the results we strive for. So, the quality and results we get, whether it be in sports, business, or life in general, is almost always a bi-product of our own intentional, unceasing, and determined efforts.
Indeed, through relentless effort, we can all be the architects of our own achievement. Yes, you can truly become a success in life, if you’ll back up your belief with relentless effort.
