‘Work harder on yourself than you do on your job’ – Jim Rohn

The late businessman and personal development expert, Jim Rohn, used to say ‘Work harder on yourself than you do on your job’. It sounds like strange advice, until you really think about what it means.

For example, I could work extremely hard every day at work, but get very little done because I don’t prioritise what is important, because I allow myself to get interrupted all of the time, or because I try to multi-task and fail to focus on any ONE thing for very long. OR, I could ‘work on myself’ by learning organisational and time management skills and immediately put those skills to use at work, increasing my efficiency and ouput at my job.

I could work long hours trying to do everything myself, or I could learn to delegate well and find someone better suited to some of what is on my ‘to do’ list and multiply what I and others get done.

I could spend inordinate amounts of time micro-managing people in my team to make sure they do their work, or I could ‘work on myself’ by improving my leadership skills, becoming better at motivating others to work to their fullest potential with minimal supervision from me.

I could get very frustrated chasing colleagues to do that piece of work that I need to finish my project, or I could work on my ability to connect with others, and find that they willingly and quickly go out of their way to help me.

Do you see, with focus on just a few areas of working hard on YOURSELF, how it could make an incredible difference to your job?

So today, although it feels a bit odd to do it that way, I’m going to work harder on myself than I do on my job. Just like long-term thinking can seem counter-intuitive, while short-term behaviour feels much more
appealing, it’s long-term thinking that what will take us further faster. Let’s spend time working on ourselves to become better people, who will then naturally and easily do a better job.