Work Hard and Smile Harder

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Effort means everything Success can mean a lot of different things to many different people. In my opinion success means setting personal goals and then achieving them. Success has a lot to do with the effort that you put in to attain your goal. To get anywhere in life, one must work hard to get to place that they desire. Most even argue that effort presumes as the single most important aspect in succeeding. We have all seen it, the one person who spends countless hours studying for a test and then therefore, typically receives the highest marks in the class. Putting the utmost effort into a certain area will encourage people to conquer their goals and eventually, feeling successful in life.

To crush personal goals, you must have a lot of dedication and put in the effort to master them. For example, professional athletes work extremely hard each and everyday to get into tip-top shape for their season or competition, an insane amount of training goes into what they do. For instance, Olympic gold medalist, Gabby

Douglas had a very

difficult upbringing.

Douglas started out

her life living in a van

and then later living at

a relatives with her single mother and three other siblings. She easily picked up the knack for gymnastics and eventually moved to Iowa to train at an olympic

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gym. Liang Chow, Douglas’ coach explained how her effort lead her to the olympics, “​she is also a very hard worker who is determined to reach her daily goals” (Neporent). Furthermore, dearly loved player for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Lebron James had a troubling childhood. James and his mother moved around 12 times between ages 5-8 and missed over 100 days of school. James finally ended up living with his basketball coach at age 9 who gave him the motivation to put his efforts into basketball to surpass his

situation

(Saslow). He explained that he made

succeeding

in basketball his number one goal: he

worked

hard. His effort and hardwork made James successful in life today. Lastly, Wilma Rudolph fell sick to polio at the young age of four and a doctor explained to her that she would never walk again and needed to wear a leg brace. However, Rudolph had the dream that she would run the fastest in the world; she took off her leg brace and started running. Eventually, Rudolph won 3 gold medals in the 1960’s olympics (Rudolf).

Ultimately, I encourage everyone to put the greatest amount of effort into everything they do to guarantee achievement from each and every person who wants success in their life. As a result, the more effort that people put in will lead

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to success and benefit each individual's life. Finally, effort presumes as a very important factor in obtaining success.

Dishler 5 Happiness and Success or Success and Happiness?

Success can mean many different things to many different people; I believe success means setting goals and crushing those goals. But what about someone’s happiness? Does success create happiness or does happiness create success? I have personally experienced both sides of the spectrum. I believe that happiness and success work both ways; Success and happiness feed off of each other to obtain the other as a goal.

To begin, I have found that happiness can lead to success and one must feel content to reach success. For example, sometimes I am excited to do my homework because of the fact that I understand a concept and want to show it off.

This excitement towards my work encourages me to feel achieved rather than neutral towards completing my work. Further, when one has a positive mindset they reap multiple benefits including: more engagement at work, receiving better grades, living longer and less acute symptoms to illness’ (Caprino Kathy). Lastly, I think that success starts at happiness and positivity because one study found that, “success accounts for 10% of happiness” (Hopwood, Carol). This study proves that the success of an individual does not necessarily equate to happiness, so happiness would have to come first. Contra to this, some believe that one could not possibly feel happy without money or success. However, 84% of people who

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live in Zimbabwe feel happy with their life, and they do not have a high standard in living (Ospina and Roser).

With all of this in mind, I claimed that success meant setting goals and crushing them. Who says that vanquishing goals does not make you happy? I for one know that they do. As a child I created standards for myself and once they were meant, I would feel elated. For example, completing my times tables in under a minute made me feel happy and that came from my success of completing a goal I set out for. In addition to this notion, I frequently set goals for my running such as: a faster mile or running longer. This past winter I made made several training plans and goals to run longer. The first time I smashed my goal of running 10 miles in an hour in a half I felt ecstatic. Opposingly, some still hold the idea that living with success in mind impedes happiness but doctors have discovered that dopamine releases every time you complete a goal, therefore creating happiness.

In the end, I hope that everyone will see that success and happiness feed off of each other in hopes that society will feel more positive about themselves. If this happens, our community as a whole will grow and more ideas and hard work will surface. To reiterate, I believe that happiness can come from success but equally as important is our personal success feelings also lead to happiness.

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Interview I conducted an interview with my grandfather, Rinardo Constantino (83) about his success in life.

Q: Describe your childhood growing up.

A: My parents were foreigners and I was the fourth child of 7. My parents were very dispinlary and to them, work ethic was the important thing. We also had very little, I never even had a bicycle. A real treat for us was when my mom made bread and we dipped it in olive oil. I did not go to a restaurant or on a plane until I was much older, probably in my early 20’s.

Q: What do you define success as?

A: As a child I always wanted to have it better than what I had as a child so I would define success as improving yourself. Personally, I wanted to manage my own affairs and get myself into a position that I was comfortable with, financially.

Q: In your opinion, have you reached success? Why/ Why not?

A: I reached success in certain areas but not the extent that I had set out for what I was younger.

Q: What kinds of goals did you make to reach success?

A: I Started out with very small goals, and just kept making larger and larger goals. I never had huge, outlandish goals but instead made new goals as I met old ones.

Q: How did you obtain your goals? Do you believe that setting goals for yourself enabled you to feel successful after reaching your goals?

A: I never had a legitimate plan, as a I saw opportunities I grabbed them. My goals were to take all of the opportunities I could get and that helped me gain success.

Q: What do you believe aided you the most in achieving success the most?

A: Hard work, I was constantly striving to do better and make my company larger so I constantly worked to get my company where I wanted it.

Q: Did anything or anyone ever impede you from reaching your goals? If so,what? How did you overcome it?

A: Yes, I initially went into the family business and family businesses are hard, no one wants to hurt each others’ feelings. Because of this, I created my own business away from my siblings and parents.

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Q: Did obtaining success with work make you feel happy?

A: ​To a point, being financially at ease allowed me to live a more stress free. However, money never made me especially happy nor unhappy.

Q: Do you believe that happiness leads to success or success leads to happiness? Or both?

A: I think there is truth to both of these statements. I know many people who have a lot of money and are not happy whatsoever but I also know many people who have very little money and are as happy as can be.

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Dishler 10 Movie Review In today’s society, a huge form of entertainment comes from movies. Many movies circle around humor or horror, but some fall under the category of success . Many of these success stories touch on effort that goes in to each and every person to achieve success. Since movies started, success stories came to light such as: “It’s a wonderful life”, “Rocky”, “Forrest Gump” and “Pursuit of Happyness”. Even now, people love to watch movies on hard work paying off. Further,​ Soul Surfer ​portrays a huge sense of determination and in the end hard work paying off. Additionally, the movie ​The Devil Wears Prada stood out to me as a success story about finding oneself to reach happiness. These two non fiction and fiction works demonstrate how hard work and happiness ultimately leads to success rather than superficial things or money.

Firstly, ​Soul Surfer​ does a tremendous job of exemplifying how hard work pays off and determination will lead to success. The movie starts off by illustrating 13 year old Bethany Hamilton's love for surfing and eventually presents a shark attack where Hamilton lost her arm. Hamilton must overcome many obstacles without her arm; she even has to relearn simple tasks, like cutting up fruit.

The rest of the movie illustrates

Hamiltons effort to prove that her

soul belongs to surfing so she

continues to live life and attempts

to get back on the board. Not only

does Hamilton get back in the

water, she persists even further

and ultimately wins a world

championship as a professional

surfer. “Soul Surfer” encourages

many to do to the unthinkable and pursue your dreams by pouring hard work into everything you do.

Hamilton demonstrates that we all can attain our dreams and success if we simply put in the effort to get there.

Secondly, the movie T ​ he Devil Wears Prada​ exemplifies how success comes from true happiness and not money or as a high profile fashion magazine editor. Andy Sachs gets a dream job with Runway

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However, the torture pays off and she takes meticulous steps to get to the top. In the end, Andy returns home because she knew that this job did not make her happy and she goes into her original goal of journalism which makes her truly happy. The movie demonstrates how doing something that makes one happy acts as the first step to success.

All in all, I hope that teens who watch these movies feel inspired to do something great that makes them happy and work hard to do so. If this happens, more people will feel successful within themselves. Moreover, I personally liked ​Soul Surfer​ more than ​The Devil Wears Prada ​because of the message that it sent. The idea of never giving up and continuous persistence sends a very important message to anyone who feels like giving up which I believe serves as the more important aspect of success.

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Works Cited Caprino, Kathy. “How Happiness Directly Impacts Your Success.” ​Forbes​, Forbes Magazine, 13 Feb. 2016, Hopwood, Carol. “Happy People Are More Likely to Be Successful .” ​Lasting Change

Counseling​, 24 Oct. 2016, Leather, Ariel. “Gabby Douglas.” ​Gazette Review​, 9 Mar. (Image) Lebron James MVP. Getty Image Neporent, Liz. “Olympian Gabby Douglas Homeless, Bullied Before Winning Gold.” ​ABC

News​, ABC News Network, 13 Dec. 2012, Ospina, Esteban, and Max Roser. “Happiness and Life Satisfaction.” ​Our World in Data​, Raj, Vani, “5 Success Tips To Become A Billionaire As Told By A Billionaire.” ​Student

Resource ​, 13 Oct. 2017, (Success Image) Saslow, Eli. “Lost Stories of LeBron, Part 1.” ​ESPN​, ESPN Internet Ventures, 17 Oct. 2013, “Soul Surfer – Metropolis Magazine.” ​Metropolis Magazine​, 6 June 2012,

The Devil Wears Prada​. Etv “Wilma Rudolph.” ​Biography.com​, A&E Networks Television, 19 Jan. 2018,

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