Typically when you are talking about hard work it means you are working too much. But, you can explain hard work as trying to do something that is beyond your expectations.
Meanwhile, the definitions of hard work can be:
Do more than expected
Continue while others quite
Accept the failure as a temporary situation
Ignore pessimists
Stand unpleased moments
However, hard-working combined with intelligence will make a desirable result and help you fulfill your goals. Although the way of each person's success is different, the five steps among them are common that will lead you to use hard work and intelligence in the same direction are common.
The drive: This component is the inspiration and motivation for all your hustles. It is the engine you need to drive your efforts.
The Plan: If the drive is the heart of your hard work, then the plan is the skeleton. A plan is one thing that helps you find the way.
The grind: This is the one element that causes you to lose all the comfort and joy. Besides, make working overwhelming, stressful, boring, and eventually hard work.
The Sacrifice: this is the obvious feature of hard work and one thing that makes the hard work really hard! each ambitious goal needs an essential sacrifice. the financial crisis, losing people, emotional pressures, etc. are your real experiments during the hard work.
The payoff: In order to make your hard work valuable, you need to have a couple of goals in a chain. Then, after achieving them remind yourself that "this is just the beginning".
