by Michelle Wilkinson

Created on: August 05, 2011   Last Updated: May 16, 2012

It is impossible to get away from the fact a good work ethic will help you to achieve career success. You can't simply sit back and relax, waiting for everyone else to do all the work and then hoping to claim some of the credit. This will breed resentment amongst your colleagues and will not help you with your long-term career goals. Besides, what is the point of setting yourself career goals if you are not prepared to work hard to achieve them? Luck and connections will only get you so far before you will actually be expected to do some work.

A good work ethic will benefit you in the workplace because your colleagues will respect the fact you work hard and they are able to turn to you when they need help. It will be much easier for you to cooperate with your colleagues if you all pull your weight and will reflect better on you when it comes around to promotion time. If you want to get ahead in your career you will obviously have to learn how to get the best out of people and to delegate tasks and responsibilities, anyway.

If you have made your way to the top the hard way, people will respect you for it and will listen to what you have to say, which may not be the case if you have coasted along, relying on your social contacts to achieve career success. It is one thing to get to the top, but another thing entirely to stay there. Eventually, you will have to recognise the importance of a good work ethic if you want to build a successful career and gain the respect of the people you work with.

It is therefore helpful to develop a good work ethic early on, so you can use it to get ahead in your studies and achieve the grades needed to follow your preferred profession. If you study hard, you will later be able to reap the rewards of your efforts when you find you have a much wider range of jobs to choose from and  you can build a career which brings with it status and a decent salary. You have to be prepared to work hard if you want people to acknowledge you're good at what you do and actually deserve to be rewarded financially and in terms of promotion.

A good work ethic means being prepared to go beyond what is expected of you, working long hours and producing high-quality work. It also means being able to get along with your colleagues and to work together, sharing the credit for a collaborative effort. Without a good work ethic it will definitely be much harder to achieve any kind of career success.

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