Remarkable work comes from remarkable effort

“Nothing that’s worthwhile is ever easy. Remember that.” – Nicholas Sparks

Do you every struggle with the reality of how much WORK is involved in doing something that so many others seem to do effortlessly?

This misnomer for many of us is that there is such thing as something that is effortless. Maybe it really is a lot of work for anyone to do – or maybe it gets easier with practice, or time. But in most cases, expecting something new to be effortless is simply a way to set ourselves up for unmatched expectations.

Early in my career, I discovered this concept very clearly when I began programming professionally. I thought that, for sure, there would be an easier way to achieve some relatively simple functions for web programming rather than coding out thousands of lines of code. But I was wrong… indeed, every programmer I met was doing the same thing – spending hours and hours copying and pasting, creating basic functions for things that we probably all needed, and basically doing a lot more work on something I thought should be simple.

Never think that something remarkable was not a result of a lot of hard work. More likely than not, someone along the way spent countless hours perfecting their craft, building their product, or creating their systems that now make it look easy.

Today’s remarkable effort
Take my task today – creating a piece of digital art and publishing it on Etsy. There are hundreds of crafters, makers, sewers and artists publishing thousands of items to Etsy daily. And, after all, I am a web designer, so working within a well-designed user interface like Etsy, and creating a piece of digital art with my concept nearly complete and within software I have used for years… well, it should be effortless, right?

Wrong.

A little over 4 hours from when I began, I can finally proudly say I have my first piece of family tree art up and available or sale. I decided on a digital download because it was something I could accomplish putting up for sale within one day.

So, without further ado, the result of my remarkable effort… Click here to view on Etsy

Later this week I will be creating more versions, printed pieces (rather than digital downloads), and some specialty pieces. Stay tuned for more results from more remarkable efforts!