Working hard is not hard. It is very simple and very straight forward. If you have a goal, there is large amount of work that is necessary to even put your name in the hat for achieving it. If you truly want something, doing the necessary work is not hard.

Getting up early in the morning for a team lift? That’s not that hard. Riding on a bus across the country and trying to keep up with your studies? Really not that hard. Deciding to stay in on a Saturday night when all other students are out partying? Pretty easy.

Here’s the hard part:

Working your tail off for those goals, and consistently not getting the desired results. That’s friggin hard.

I’ve long considered that the hardest part of baseball (and many other sports). This was always the part that created the most hardship for me. No matter how much work we put in or how perfectly we execute on the training regimen, we are not guaranteed results.

It always took a large toll on me when I felt like I maxed out the amount of work I was putting in but wasn’t getting the result I wanted. I know it happened to many of my teammates as well. It seemed very unfair.

But baseball (and life) doesn’t care about fairness.

That is very important for young athletes to know. And once you do, you can free yourself from the expectations of the desired results.

The best way to combat this unfairness is to let it go. We need to become process-oriented, not results-driven. The hard work that is easy, needs to continue to happen no matter what because that is the correct process. Whether we fail or succeed, we must show up the next day and execute on our process just like we did the day before.

And when those failures start to stack up, the process becomes even more important. That is when character shines through and to me, when boys become men.

We aren’t guaranteed very many things in life. Results certainly aren’t one of them. I do believe, though, that we are guaranteed adversity. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you came from, you are going to face adversity. And it will be hard to deal with.

Realize that putting in “sweat equity” is not hard. Dealing with failure, disappointment, and heartache are hard. But that is when it is most important to be at our best as human beings.