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The hardest thing you’ll ever be asked to do at work is also the simplest.
Just do what they tell you.
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Over the years I’ve watched a lot of people struggle at jobs—not because they weren’t capable, but because they pushed back.
“That’s not how we did it at my last job.”
“I have a better way.”
“This doesn’t make sense.”
Sometimes pride gets involved too.
The truth is, at almost every job there’s someone you answer to—a supervisor, manager, executive, or owner. Whether we like it or not, they’re the ones deciding what “good performance” looks like.
I’ve had some wild jobs in my life. One of the toughest was working in retention. If you’ve never done retention work, it’s mentally brutal. You spend your entire day talking to people who want to cancel something.
Most people burn out quickly.
But I stayed six years.
My first year I made $100,000, which is almost unheard of in that type of role. Because of that, they eventually had me mentoring new hires.
New people would always ask the same question:
“How did you do it?”
They expected some secret technique or clever trick.
I would tell them the truth.
When I started, I had no idea what I was doing. I was completely lost. So I studied the job, learned the system, and did the hardest thing you’ll ever be asked to do.
I did what they told me.
That’s it.
Nothing fancy. I just followed the instructions.
Some new hires actually tried it. Those people usually made great money.
Others couldn’t do it. Pride got in the way. Stress got in the way. They wanted to do things their own way.
Some quit.
Some were fired.
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Over time I adopted a simple rule for every job:
I take the guessing out of it.
I just do what they tell me.
And something interesting happens when you operate this way.
If you follow the instructions exactly and things don’t work, the system eventually changes and adapts. But if everyone is doing things their own way, no one can tell whether the process failed—or the person did.
Most people don’t fail at work because they can’t do the job.
They fail because they refuse to do it the way they were asked.
Have you ever seen someone fail at a job because they refused to follow instructions?