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

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In every Olympics including this year’s games, new world records are being set by those who continue to innovate the way they train and perform. In renowned expertise researcher, K. Anders Ericsson’s, book on performance, Peak, I came across this quote that served as a great reminder.

“Progress is made by those who are working on the frontiers of what is known and what is possible to do, not by those who haven’t put in the effort needed to reach that frontier.“

To innovate and be better than the best, first emulate the best (like Ben Franklin).

A few easy-to-understand-yet-difficult-to-do tips:

1. Practice purposefully by staying one or two steps outside of your comfort zone
   • You know you are at the limits of your ability if you are engaged in an activity that requires your FULL concentration and effort
2. Study the best performers in your field and learn their mental representations
   • What are the thoughts and practices they developed about their craft that allows them to accurately assess and fix their own mistakes?
3. Find a way to get concrete feedback for your performance so you can track your progress and pinpoint where you are falling short
4. Believe you can be better than the best
5. Work harder than everyone else you know

“When you want to achieve something and you believe that you can, you work harder”

– Philip Zimbardo, Stanford Psychologistm in The Time Paradox

In your quest to be better than the best, don’t be surprised if you hit a few plateaus. When you do, step further out of your comfort zone to reveal the particular gap in your skill set. Set up your practice to work on the isolated issue only. This should help you move beyond the plateau.

To make the world better, we should all strive to be better than the best. If you follow the steps above consistently and persistently, you have a good chance of getting there.

Photo by Marco Paköeningrat

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Here are the elements you may want to consider to do work that you love.

1. Set your own goals …

… not ones determined by biological needs or social convention. Don’t let others tell you what’s important. When you are the one to decide, you give meaning and sense for every action you take whether that action is inherently enjoyable or not.  This will give you staying power. When you know your actions are not random, it helps you overcome the naysayers.

2. Identify and work on skills needed to meet goals

Once you’ve set your goals, think about and list the skills you’ll need to achieve them and work on honing those skills. Talk to those who have gone before you, take courses and read books and articles. When you work on your skills, remember to practice deliberately daily and the earlier you get started the faster you’ll get there.

3. Get feedback on how you’re doing

To stay motivated when learning new skills, get accurate feedback on how you’re doing. One way is to set measurable metrics for success and monitor your results. Another is to work with someone who has already mastered the skills you’re learning and get their perspective and guidance for how you’re doing.

4. Engage in activities to achieve your goal

When you’ve filled the skill gaps, use your skills to complete the tasks that will bring your goal to life. When you surf the sweet spot between the boredom of an easy task and anxiety of an overly difficult one, you’ll need to fully concentrate.

5. Savor the immediate experience

This concentration on the present moment will help you enter the enjoyable “flow” state where time begins to melt away and you crowd out self consciousness. Once you’re in flow, the enjoyment comes on its own – there is no need to do anything else.

If you ever flow out of flow, ask yourself the following:

• Are you working on a goal that YOU chose?
• Are you clear on the skills you need to achieve your goal?
• Do you have the skills you need?  If not, what are you doing now to learn them?
• When taking action towards your goal, are the activities challenging your highest skill level? If it’s too hard, you’ll get despondent. If it’s too little, you’ll feel stagnant and bored.

The more obstacles you overcome to achieve your goals, the more valuable the goals become to you. Choose a worthwhile goal and invest the effort to attain it.

Inspired by Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Photo by Jules Minus

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