“The grind.”
Beyond workaholics, this phrase puts off more people than it excites. When people think of the grind, they envision their routine commute and their brainless, repetitive tasks. Not exactly a motivating image.
Yet, the grind is needed for success.
Most of your working life will consist of the grind with achievements peppered throughout. Your career is similar to a watch that keeps running and only gets recognized when you’re looking for the time or when your alarm goes off. It’s not glorious but it’s the way things work. You can’t shortcut the time it takes to get great at something.
With that said, surviving the grind isn’t as bad as you think as long as you choose something you want to do. A nostalgic example that comes to mind for me is Super Mario Brothers (the original version on the Nintendo Entertainment System). Like most young children, I had a short attention span. Yet I would spend countless hours repeating the same exact stages over and over again because I wanted to “beat” the game and impress my friends. That was the grind.
What allowed me to keep going with this seemingly mundane task was making progress in the game. As long as I was moving ahead, the grind was paying off.
If you begin to question your daily grind, there is a good chance that you’re not seeing improvement or progress anymore. This should alarm you because you’re probably on the cusp of burning out or you’ve already disengaged from work. Neither one of these outcomes will bring you long-term success.
To succeed professionally, find meaningful work that will help you grow. How willing you are to embrace the grind will help you determine if you’re on the right track. Below is an excellent reminder from Paul Graham’s fantastic article on the shortness of life:
“Relentlessly prune bullshit, don’t wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That’s what you do when life is short.”
– Paul Graham
Photo by Joe Madonna
