The cattle has to be round up. Complaining about the weather or going without sleep for 16 hours isn’t going to do it. So clench your teeth and get the work done. That’s the grit needed to be a cowboy.
But I’m a lot less sure that grit is such a positive trait in other professions, particularly creative endeavors like programming, design, or writing.
If I had more grit, I would probably just have clenched my teeth and dug into that J2EE architectural hole with greater perseverance, rather than giving up and building Ruby on Rails. I would probably have spent more time finishing my math classes as a senior in high school, rather than just plagiarizing my friend, and spending the time running gaming websites in the late ‘90s.
Grit is a convenient trait for enticing others to comply with the uncomfortable or the uninteresting. It elevates the perseverance of such adversity to a virtue in and of itself. Just dangle that long-term goal in front of them, accuse them of lack of grit, and compliance will oft follow.
But far more important than to be capable of suffering for your cause is to ask “what cause”? Am I the beneficiary here, or is someone else? Being high on grit may well mean sticking with a faulty cause for far longer.
Grit is an optimization for local maxima. If you’re able to change the function, drop the grit.
Michael
on 25 Aug 15A friend and I were discussing this Saturday. We concluded that the best definition of discipline/grit is to continually adhere to the wisest course of action.
Glenn
on 25 Aug 15Today our lives are so busy that it comes down to balance and what I call the Law of Economy. Taking the least amount of effort to accomplish the best possible result. This also applies to what Jason was talking about as it pertains to managing the amount of attention that you have available.
Ray Hightower
on 26 Aug 15Well said. Sacrifice without strategy is just suffering. “The Dip” by Seth Godin gives other examples of “quitters” who went on to achieve bigger goals.
Anonymous Coward
on 27 Aug 15So no grit utilized developing RoR? Or pushing a project home?
Mike Cavaliere
on 30 Aug 15I can relate a lot to this sentiment, since I used to have a tendency to overwork (and let myself work for employers that supported overworking their developers).
Makes me think of a few mantras I’ve adopted over the years to counteract it like, “Perfect is the enemy of DONE,” “Stop the glorification of busy” and “Don’t force a square peg into a circle hole.”
Bottom line: if something’s taking a mountain of effort, you’re wiser to find a better way than just push through it all the time.
This discussion is closed.