Habit of Hard Work and Excellence

Habit of Hard Work and Excellence

Parent Personal Integrity check

1. I think that you should only work as hard as you are being paid for.
2. I sometimes find myself watching the clock at work and giving mediocare work just to get by.
3. I do not force myself to go to work when I don’t feel like going.
4. I have provided my child with a false excuse for missing school.

There is no substitute for hard work. It takes a lot of will power, patience and discipline to produce excellent work. If there is anything that the Philippine taipans have in common, it is that they learned the merits of hard work from their parents. It may sound cliché but I’ve heard many parents say: “kids today don’t know the meaning of hard work!” I have seen kids victimize by the “technological age,” wherein we want things fast and easy. They are not resilient when faced with difficulties and, instead of facing challenging situations head-on, they use them as an excuse for underachieving. “We are poor, this is all I can do”, “I am not so smart, so think work is good enough”; or privileged kids would say: “it’s too hard, why do we need to do it anyway?” some kids can do excellent would say: “It’s too hard, why do we need to do it anyway?” some kids can do excellent work but just don’t care to put in the effort. Hard work is at the core of good work ethics, allowing kids to mentally commit to something with passion and giving them drive to achieve. Do not gives kids their every whim, make them work hard for it. Entrepreneurs know that they have to work hard because nothing comes for free!

Lesson from Parents

-         Habit of Hard Work

Manny Villar (CEO and President, C&P Homes, Inc.) Manny Villar describes his mother as “a consummate entrepreneur” and his best teacher in business. He said, “the best description of my mother as entrepreneur is hardworking. “She never skipped a day of work. She sold  fish in the wet market religiously, never once being absent or late. That’s one trait I learned from my mother, being hardworking. Entrepreneurs need to be hardworking to succeed. She also work very fast.

She is dynamic. She gave birth to us, her nine kids, successively, but she continued working hard daily. She is a woman of tremendous energy, she sold with passion. She’s competitive. She wanted bigger sales than other vendors in the market. She had ambition. She likes to dream, too.

I learned how to be an entrepreneur from my mother. She is also practical. She is street-smart in business. I learned how to be resourceful from her. She is pragmatic in solving problems, more pragmatic than cerebral. My mother is very good in arithmetic, fast in calculations, especially in counting change. My mother used to be a vendor selling fish and shrimps at Divisoria stall number 2245 in Tondo, Manila. I was her kargador when I was a boy.

How can the habit of Hard Work and Excellence be developed?

Take pride in a job well done. Lead by example, do excellent work required because you want to give the best work possible. It is a challenge for me to balance being a mom and running a business. Because I want to be available to my children when they need me, I end up working after they are asleep, not because I have to but because I want to. I show my kids that if something is not good enough, keep on trying to make it better. Encourage your children to give 100percent in everything they do. Reward effort instead of product. Celebrate their work by displaying it and being proud of it.

Give a full day’s work everyday. There are days when I don’t want to work, but I do. Kids feel that way too. Sometimes they feel lazy and tired. But we have to model for them tat we will still do what we committed to do. This is how my conversation my child goes: “I don’t feel like going to work today”, “Me too Mom!” “I’m going anyway because people are depending on me. I need to help others today and make important decisions.” “Oh yeah, I can’t be absent too because my group mates rely on me to do my part in our project and bring materials.” My mom is role model for going to work regardless of how she feels. There was a time that she didn’t have to go to work, but she showed up everyday because of her commitment to do kids and families at school. Nanay Coring of National Bookstore, who at 87 exemplifies the ethic of hard work, still gets up in the morning, excited to go to work everyday.

Do not be a clock watcher and just give the minimum to get by. It doesn’t matter if you are a kid or an adult, but if you don not have the passion to do excellent and good work, you will end up watching the clock. The most exciting part of your day will be “dismissal time” and you would have missed out on the exciting things you could have learned or done during the day. Help your child be an excited learner and give high quality work. Some teens deliberately give the minimum requirement. A typical response of a clock watcher to a writing task would be “Miss how many sentences do I need to give you?”, while a child who values hard work will write her heart out to truly express her thoughts and ideas. Quality of work will write her heart out to truly express her thoughts and ideas. Quality of work is learned when parents expose children to ggod examples of work. Give your kids feedback. Give them a dictionary if they misspell works. Make them redo messy work. Give them an achievable goal and help them be accountable for excellent work.