Hard work is hard. If you think you're doing hard work and yet you haven't thought of quitting, you're not doing hard work. If you haven't thought of failure and how easy it would be to turn out the light and go to bed, to take care of it in the morning, or some distant morning after you've had some 'time to restore yourself' you're not doing hard work. Hard work is not done in one day, and getting started the next day is the hardest part of any of it. The path to the second excuse is laid with the first excuse and there is no good first excuse for something that you really want to do. When you want something, resilience becomes the only choice. It is a de facto state rather than something to become. You will be driven by your end goal over all other concerns. Resilience is the ability to be taken back by reality wearing down on you and yet lean in harder and push forward until you either fail, or succeed. Either are incredibly rewarding goals.