This summer, I planted a vegetable garden. Oh what a great piece of land. It was stemming with squash, chili peppers, spinach, collards, tomatoes and cucumbers. During the first planting I meticulously seeded, weeded, and watered. Before the beginning of the day, I was in the garden shooing away pest, gentle hanging pole beans, and spraying organic materials. My garden was looking good and I received a lot of complements from friends, family and neighbors. But as the long growing season continued, I began to skip early morning work thinking that I would catch up later in the day. As the days wore on, I began to say that my workweek was too hectic and that I would tend to the garden on the weekends. As the weekends turned into days of neglect, my beautiful garden was looking more and more like the wandering forest! Weeds were indistinguishable from vegetables! And my garden visitors were getting happy and fat from my planting. One day I looked at my once beautiful garden and wondered what happened. Why had I let such concentrated effort go to waste! I finally concluded that this was "hard work".
Well, as the ole' saying goes, it takes hard work to get what you want! Too often we start out with the best intentions and achieve early success. With early success comes the illusion that we've made it. But real success lies in the harvest, not the planting. It takes hard work to continuously weed, seed and water relationships, co-worker trust, self-assurance, job or business success.
So, take a quick assessment of your garden and visualize your harvest. From there, you will know the amount of effort needed. And don't get too comfortable, 'cause every day the garden will need tending!
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