Essay 318 – They can achieve anything if they try hard enough

GT Writing Task 2 / Essay Sample # 318

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

In some cultures, children are often told that they can achieve anything if they try hard enough.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of giving children this message?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Write at least 250 words.


Model Answer:

In many societies, children are brought up to believe that if they hold a profound work ethic, they can attain whatever they want to. The obvious benefits of this are higher self-esteem and the development of determination; however, the major downsides are poor job prospects and delusion.

Inculcating the belief that young people can realize their dreams with hard work helps them build confidence in their abilities. Working towards a goal and seeing dedication pay off is extremely rewarding. Each time people reap this reward, they become more confident that they can iterate this success. Moreover, this builds tenacity, resolve and willpower, otherwise known as ‘courage’, which are vital traits for success in life. Once a child realizes that his hard work and effort is what determines success, he never gives up until his goals have been attained. A case in point is Angela Duckworth’s book Grit. In the book, the writer intensively studies accomplishments and concludes that determination is the key factor in achieving success.

However, the mindset can confine people to jobs with modest salaries. When their determination and confidence result in them pursuing careers that are not sensible for them, employers do not share the same belief in their potential and they do not achieve the dreams they had cherished for so long. For example, Mumbai is full of failed artists who believe they will be the next Bollywood star but are forced to do odd jobs that require no formal education. Another drawback is that if one blindly chases after their dreams, they can become deluded. The reason is that they can develop absolute confidence in themselves which is not compatible with reality.

In conclusion, transmitting the message to the children that they can achieve anything helps them adopt a positive attitude because it helps translate them into competent individuals who equip with the requisite soft skills that are essential for success in life. However, it should be pragmatic to avoid poor career paths and self-delusion.

One Comment to “Essay 318 – They can achieve anything if they try hard enough”

  1. In many societies, modern children are taught that they can achieve anything in life through persistent determination and the ability to study and work hard. Although there are some successful pieces of evidence from such calls, it is, at the same time, hide various drawbacks and negatively impacts both childrens’ social life and mental health.

    Those who claim that encouraging children to persuade their aims has a positive result often point to the numerous evidence of such phenomena. Especially it might be successfully applied for children who live in rich, developed countries with a range of opportunities for hard-working individuals. The parent, in this case, might play a role model of successful persons and demonstrate their ability to reach the starts by the emphasis solely on their post-education and work duties, which allows them to rapidly move the career ladder and finally become executive directors of the global corporations or share-holders of their own businesses. As a prime example of such useful message from tutors and parents might be easily observed from all successful entrepreneurs like Elon Musk or Warren Buffet, who came from an unprivileged segment of society but by their dedicated mentors who pushed them to try the best successfully reached the peaks of their career and create giant international corporations with the numerous branches all around the globe.

    Nevertheless, the aforementioned positive cases are rare, while the negative effects of such teaching or messages to young children could be observed by the naked eye but sadly has a tremendous impact on contemporary children. To starts with the fact that children who are constantly encouraged even sometimes forced to spend their time by cramming complex subjects in order to enter a prestigious university, often suffer from the lack of communication with their peers and could not build proper social relationships in order to become a suitable member of society with the rich social life. Such encouraging messages might in the end destroy what individual both private and work life and instead to become senior manager in the renowned organization or lead a happy social life, they most like would relly at the mercy of society and will seek chronic both monetary and emotional charity.

    In conclusion, despite some tangible benefits from forcing children to try hard in order to become successful individual, it, at the same time has a tremendous negative impact and make children both financially and emotionally needy individuals. So in my perspective, the catastrophic consequences of persuading children to work hard outweigh the benefits.

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