Any human with a goal must go through dificult stage to achieve the said goal.
Whatever it is that you go through during your goal achievement, you just have to enjoy the process. First sign of a successful goal is the tiredness and difficulties involved. Never quit when you feel tired, all you need is rest and continue knowing the end point will be profiting. Every hard works pays definitely but not immediately all you need to so is to be consistent.
It doesn't always need to be difficult. As the saying says, work smart not hard. There are people who are naturally lazy and wants an easy route or a short cut but it only made their journey harder. That is because what they pick a wrong path. They believe on the scammers. They skip the learning part. As a result they lose.
This why going on the default hard path is still better as it can make you more knowledgeable and stronger. Other than consistency, patience is also a must so that one must not quit. Once we start to see a positive result, things are going to be easy after because we are now motivated to do our routine. This can also lessen the fatigue or tiredness that we are feeling.
I think work hard is still a good thing though, if you are not smart. I do not consider myself as a smart person, or at least I am not a genius when it comes to trading or even math. However, I am a hard working person, and I am willing to work 12+ hours a day, thanks to that even though I am not the smartest person I know, I am one of the people who earn most, well at least in my surroundings.
I know plenty of smarter people than me but they went the wrong way and didn't work hard, they just wanted the thing they want to do, so smart working is not easy for those people. I personally think that hard work beats talent every single day, as long as you are willing to put the grind on, you are not going to be beaten by many people.