Yes, grit is extremely important, but so is adaptability.
It’s crucial to identify when to grit and when to quit.
If you’re making choices genuinely aligned with your values, there may come a time when the only smart thing to say is “enough is enough.”
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It’s often difficult to let go of a longtime goal without feeling like a failure.
But when you view yourself through a lens of self-compassion, this process of reevaluation and adaptation takes on a different light.
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Then quitting becomes the opposite of failure: a new opportunity to redirect your energy toward things of greatest importance to you.
Here are some questions to ask.
- Am I enjoying or finding satisfaction in what I’m doing—perhaps not every second, but overall?
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- Is what I am doing a reflection of what is truly important to me?
- Do I spend most days using what I am good at in pursuit of my goal?
- In my gut, do I believe I can be successful in meeting my goal? (Context matters!)
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- Have I changed or has the situation changed such that gritting is no longer wise or values-aligned?
- In sticking with this plan, what opportunities that I might find exciting or interesting or important, am I passing up? Am I okay missing out on those?
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There is ample research suggesting that cultivating the ability to walk away from existing goals (due to health, lack of hoped-for resources, skills that despite practice never developed, etc) in order to pursue alternative goals, can be courageous, smart and strategic.
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Grit needs to hold hands with the ever-changing context of our lives, especially over the long term. We need to lift the stigma of quitting under these circumstances, so that doing so can be rightfully seen as adaptive and embraced with grace and dignity.
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Feelings are not facts. You don't need to believe them.
Are they valid? Yes. They are a core part of our experience of the world.
- Should we honor them with compassion? Yes.
- Should they be heard? Yes.
- Do they signpost things we care about? Yes.
Are they facts? No.
*Choosing* to believe a feeling, is not the same as automatically believing it.
I trust my best friend. Can I honor her, love her? Yes.
- Is everything she says a fact? No.
- Do I believe *everything* she says. No, she could be wrong.
- Do I obey everything she says? No.
I may have any number of feelings: that I'm unlovable, guilt that I'm a bad parent, or similar.
Is that feeling a "fact"? Do I *have* to believe the feeling?
- Am I unlovable. NO.
- Am I a bad parent? NO.
A long history of "feminizing" emotion - the notion that emotional capabilities and emotionality are more female than male - has devastating consequences.
One is the suppression of NORMAL yet supposedly "undesirable" emotions by gender and associated mental health costs.
Another is the societal devaluing of the "care" professions especially when those professions intersect with gender bias - like therapy and social work.
The crisis in available care and the underpayment of those who provide it, should be deeply concerning to all.
Another, is the view by many organizations & education systems that the emotional skills that are *essential* to wellbeing and adaptability - and will become more so in an increasingly complex, automated world - are "soft skills."
A leader is someone who instead invites, “trust my compass.”
1/5
It's tempting to present solutions and strategies as if they are defined and incontrovertible.
Yet, the truth is leaders cannot know the answers.
The world - technology, politics, and markets - is constantly changing. There are simply too many variables for a "map."
2/5
Leading from a "map" is a frequent organizational expectation. This is inhumane.
It places extraordinary pass/fail pressure on the leader; it demands teams act in particular ways "or else"; it denies the truth: the future is complex and outcomes are impossible to predict.
3/5