The Formula of Hard Work? No Pain. No Beauty. No Me!

‘No pain. No beauty. No me!’ wasn’t just a slogan. But the formula of hard work that birthed the success I hungered for in the 45 minutes of pushing, screwing, and twisting through excruciating pain. All in the name of wearing a nose pin.

Sounds stupid right?

Not to me. Or the millions of piercings lovers frolicking in the street.

When you want something as badly as I needed the nose pin in its rightful place, you slum lock your ears to the whiners, naysayers, and the ‘wise’ and dive deep into hard work. The result is the defining beauty wished for. And then a pile of exclusive possibilities!

Here is my story.

Reviewing Nakedness: The Formula for Hard Work at Play

Towards the end of July this year, I caught a relative of COVID-19 that led to two weeks of my nose keeping me hard at work. One nostril overflowed while the other remained blocked despite the heap of medication. That forced me to strip my nose of its adornment! Wow, naked!

Yeap! I felt exposed.

You see, I hadn’t pictured myself without the nose pin prior to this ordeal. But I needed to heal. Little did I know that my nasal muscles would seize the moment to shrink the tiny hole they deemed irrelevant.

If you ask anyone who loves piercings, there’s a price to pay for every acquired hole—pain. A nose piercing, for example, costs at least 3 days of ouches whenever you try to smile, yawn or sneeze. Not accounting for the hard work it takes to maintain a straight face when your emotions demand otherwise. But the pain of the anticipated beauty is worth embracing.

More Pain

The sum total of that pain however is nothing compared to the magnitude experienced while reclaiming an abandoned nose piercing. It’s agonizing. So on the last day of August, I braced myself with the new nose pin, an ice block, and hot salty water to mention but a few of my ammunition from my beauty arsenal. Then I began bolting the pin down the shrinking tunnel.

Push! Screw! Push some more!

The damn pin couldn’t sink beyond a millimetre. Yet it left a trail of excruciating pain starting from the tip of my nose, up the top of my head, and down through the spine to my heart. A semblance of upper body labour pains!

But I wasn’t going to let it win. So, I stuck a block of ice on the tip of my nose to calm the nerves and carried on with the battle pushing, screwing, and twisting the pin in. It registered a little inward movement, but at the price of a drop of blood. Nevertheless, progress made!

Yes, Beauty!

For the next 30 minutes, no matter how painful the process got, I kept twisting and pushing the pin down the hole. Halfway into the action, I ran out of ice marking the beginning of the hot salty water’s shift. That came with multiple swearing, more blood droplets, and tears streaming down my left cheek.

Then, pop! I saw the pin’s head in the reflection of the mirror. Hurray! I did it!

The formula for hard work sired my nose’s beauty and not even the pain I would endure for the rest of the week would snatch that success away from me. I had worked hard for it, it was worth it, and I would do it all over again!

The Upgrade

Today, my nose is adorned with a brand new silver ring. The exclusive upgrade. I however had to insert it from the inner side for safe locking on the outer.

Painful? Absolutely. But Dr Eric Thomas, the hip-hop preacher explains the process this way, “When you get to a point where all you want to do is to be successful, as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.” Yet again the formula of hard work came to play. And the success birthed worth throwing a party for!

That my friend is the zeal you ought to have when you want something. And it takes hard work.

The Formula of Hard Work in 7 Basic Steps

Before you take a pail, pick, and shovel, and head for the mines, let’s first define hard work.

Hard work is the intentional effort and commitment invested in planning, doing, and completing a task to the successful end. Share on X

Honest truth, hard work is never easy. It’s ruthless. And takes work. But the formula reveals the beauty of whatever you desire. Then the true you comes to the surface. Let these 7 steps shed light on your way to the thing you desire to bring to fruition. Here we go!

Step 1. Identify

Know what you want so well that you can describe the successful end to anyone who cares to ask. Don’t worry if they don’t see the sense in it, some of my family members don’t see the point of having a nose ring either.

Step 2. Plan

Come up with a blueprint of what you want. Define the end goal so you will know it when you see it, the processes needed to get there and the resources thereof. Not only had I pictured how I would look after wearing the pin, I also assembled the ammunition needed for the process. New pin. Check. Ice block. Check. Hot salty water. Check!

Step 3. Invest

Put aside time, energy and relationships you need to get things done. This also requires giving up all distraction for the sake of committing all your resources to pursue your goal. I had the whole morning reserved for the nose job alone.

Step 4. Action

Do the work. The success you desire lives under tons of action, so just do it. When the D-day came, I went to work pushing, screwing and twisting the pin all the way through the tunnel.

Step 5. Commit

Steven Pressfield in the book Do the Work, urges, “Once we commit to action, the worst thing we can do is to stop.” So keep working until you get to the successful end. While re-establishing piercings, the worst sin you can ever commit is to stop midway. You must persevere through the pain until the leading end of the pin appears.

Step 6. Evaluate

Test the results. In the event success dodges you, don’t give up. Go back to the drawing board in Step 2 and plan all over again. Keep your eye on the desired goal and rework until you see the successful end. Buy into the mantra of the slaves, “We will live because one day we will become!”

Step 7. Succeed

Get it right in a way that you can do it all over again because you have become! After sitting the nose pin, I gained the courage to upgrade to a nose ring. And that feels beautiful!

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Call it manifesting if that makes the journey lighter. But whatever you desire—a position at work, writing a book, buying a home, or even winning a remarkable client or partner—sits on the other end of the formula of hard work. The more important what you pursue is to you, the more blood, sweat, and tears you will shed for it. There is no easy way around it. Just as there was no shortcut to reclaiming my nose’s beauty. There you have it!