You won't be fed with a silver spoon. The secret is there's no secret
Truth is, I know nothing. I'm like a fly repeatedly hitting a window trying to get to the other side. I've been hurrying too much to get what I thought I wanted.
Reading a short passage of Ray Dalio - Principles, it's clear that I haven't putting enough effort—far from it—in my endeavours. Whatever they were, business or trading. I've been lazy and wishful, hoping to find an easy and quick solution to succeed, whatever that meant each time. But to rise above average is much, much more difficult than you instinctively think. Not only it's more difficult, but there are gazillions of things out of our control, which means it also inevitably depends on luck in some part.
Ray Dalio has been studying markets, business, history, statistics, much more, for years, and even then he failed big. And here I am, watching YouTube videos and Udemy courses thinking I can take on any market and get rich from it.
You won't be fed with a silver spoon. The secret is there's no secret. You have to put in both the work and the reasoning. Work by itself is not enough. You have to use your brain, think for yourself, and reflect. This way you can work smart. But you have to put yourself out there and do whatever it takes to go from where you are to where you want to be.
Stop looking for the silver bullet
One good way to start using your brain is to stop looking for "the solution", "the secret", to find the recipe that you can follow easily and reap the rewards. Instead, seek understanding, to be able to understand what are the causes and effects, the reasons, what moves the needle, and to derive the course of action from your own thinking.
Assess the situation and reach your own conclusions
Rather than being told what to do, derive Principles and models for yourself.
This is harder of course. You will have to use your brain. To think, test, experiment, assess, and reassess constantly. Things get accomplished by iteration
And it's hard. It's super fucking hard. What you really need is not motivation but realign your expectations. What you are trying to accomplish is much harder than you think. And even when you have recalibrated your expectation, it'll likely still be even harder than that.