My wife and I were discussing the upcoming tryouts for Roman’s high school basketball team, and she shared how she felt sorry for the kids who have been attending morning workouts and won’t make the team. She referenced how, as a society, we tell our kids that if they put in the hard work, then they’ll see the results they are looking for.

I told her that’s true—we do make it seem like if you just put in the hard work, then you’ll achieve your goals, but obviously that’s not the case.

The hard work, sacrifice, commitment, and discomfort exhibited by the boys who attend morning workouts are necessary for making the team. But those alone won’t get you on the team in a competitive environment. There will always be several kids who will be disappointed when it comes to tryouts because they did everything they were asked to do, but still were unable to achieve their goal of making the team.

And such is life.

As I think about the parallels between high school basketball and the Pursuit of your authentic life, I can’t help but notice the importance of aligning your hard work, sacrifice, commitment, discomfort, etc. with the authentic life you were created to live.

If only it were that easy, though.

It is necessary to put in the hard work only to come up short of your desired goal. This helps you realize that the goal you were pursuing wasn’t the right one for you; it could also tell you that what you define as hard work isn’t hard enough, but that’s a thread to pull on for another Note. By giving your all and coming up short, you can look your Self in the mirror knowing you did everything you were supposed to and you were just pursuing the wrong goal.

You minimize regret.

You realize you should be doing something else.

You pursue a new interest or passion.

Eventually, you will discover the goal that your hard work allows you to achieve, and you will probably notice that the hard work didn’t seem that hard after all–at least in comparison to the goals you were not able to achieve.

So, don’t forget that hard work is required to live your authentic life, but hard work alone doesn’t guarantee anything.

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See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,

JC