Talent has little or nothing to do with greatness, hard work on the other hand …
The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call “deliberate practice.” It's activity that's explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one's level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.
Consistency is crucial.
The difference between those who achieve their performance goals and those who don’t is a consistent period of deliberate effort to improve performance in that specific domain.
“Elite performers in many diverse domains have been found to practice, on the average, roughly the same amount every day, including weekends. (Ericsson)”
REFERENCES
K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Romer. The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance. Psychological Review 1993, Vol. 100. No. 3, 363-406