Too gritty for own good

Grit and self-control are related, but they’re not the same thing.

Angela Duckworth

I am a gritty guy. Those who know me would agree that I never give up on anything. This attitude has given me much success in life. When all others have given up and are well on their way back home, I would grind on and on and achieve success.

But it is not always the case. My grit has many a time sapped my energy and thrown me down the dark valleys of depression. Then I would realize that I should have given up on the pursuit much before and slap myself on the head.

So is there a hard and fast rule of when to give up?

A recent experience

I recently had an opportunity to think along these lines. The project I am assigned to is the hardest one yet. It is not just the overwhelming quantity of work but the lack of clarity and direction from the client that makes life difficult. I, for the last 8 months, have been trying to get the project on track with minimal results.

With unnerving work and no hope, my energy level was depleted to an all-time low. My mentor–who is also part of the project–identified this and had a conversation with me. He knew my proclivity to hang on. It was clear to him that I was not happy. He advised me to look for other opportunities. No project is worth so much effort.

Why am I gritty?

I got his point. I know I am too tough for my own good. I tend to hang in the hope of pulling myself up even when I can easily climb down and walk away. It crushes me, however, every time I look back and see that I have not gone all the way.

But my mentor’s comments made me rethink this nature, which was, I believe, instilled by the more than two decades of martial arts training. If practitioners cannot go through the pain period, they will never refine their art and climb the steep hill of mastery.

Well, it is good in martial arts, imperative even. But would that apply to everything? I thought it would. Even this blog, which I have been writing for the last seven years without any income or possibility of it, is a reflection of my grit. It did serve me well. But not always.

The more I think of my grit, the more I doubt it. Maybe it is the energy and time I invested in the work that pushes me to succeed. If I were to talk to Daniel Kahnemann, he would say that it is the sunk cost fallacy, misinterpreted as grit, that doesn’t let me give up.

Or it might be the fear of failure. Our society abhors failures. To give up something and stand as a loser in front of a judging society is my nightmare, like anyone else’s.

But is it necessary, or even possible, that we should win at everything?

The takeaways

The answer is no. I realize now that no one can be a success in everything. The time, dedication, and effort it takes to be an expert in one steal it from another. Otherwise, we would find Tiger Woods, Magnus Carlson, and Usain Bolt rolled into one person.

Hence, setting priorities is the first requirement. I need to know where to succeed and where to lose. Some battles are not to be won. Just give up and focus that energy on more rewarding efforts.

Coming back to my project, it surely is a learning experience. I am willing to give it two more months of my effort. If things don’t work out by that time, I would walk away with everything I’ve learned; the biggest one being when to give up.

Thank you for reading. Please post your comments below.