The Grind – Don’t Ease Up, Don’t Give

Up
When you were graduating from high school, someone older probably sat you down
and gave you a certain piece of advice. Maybe this person was a father or an uncle or a
family friend, but whoever he was, he had been in the workforce for a while and wanted
to pass a bit of wisdom to you. Here’s what he said:

“Choose a job that that you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

That tidbit of advice, while well-meaning, is, sadly, a crock of romantic wishful thinking.
No one—not even Oprah—lives this supposed axiom. Even if you are a freelance work-
at-home marine biologist/rock star/wizard, there will be times when you just do not
want to get out of bed and do your job. This can be a simple case of the Mondays. Or it
can be seven consecutive years of thankless toil before you see a single cent of profit.
But it is a fact of life.
Dr. Jim Taylor, writing for Psychology Today, calls this “The Grind.” The Grind is when
you are doing work that takes “you far beyond the point at which it is fun and exciting.”
The Grind is stressful, tiring and tedious. It also happens to be the point where it really,
really counts.

As Dr. Taylor puts it: “Many businesspeople when they reach this point either ease up or
give up because it's just too darned hard. But truly motivated businesspeople reach The
Grind and keep on going.”

To beat The Grind, he recommends striking a balance somewhere in the middle of the
love-hate continuum. Managing to truly love The Grind—the paper pushing, the boring
meetings, the bleary-eyed mornings when you punch the clock at your 9-to-5 job after
pulling an all-nighter on your side project—rarely ever happens. On the other hand,
openly hating The Grind is a recipe for burnout. That’s why Dr. Taylor writes: “I suggest
that you neither love nor hate The Grind; you simply accept it as part of the deal in
striving toward success.”

The Grind is stressful, tiring and tedious. It also happens to be the point where
it really, really counts.
In Psychology Today, Dr. Taylor was writing about success in the business world. But it
applies outside the cube walls as well. Let’s take a look at another real life example.
Grinding Across the Polar Ice Caps
As a newlywed, Akshay Nanav took a big risk. Just four months after his wedding, the 27
year old ex-Marine walked away from his full time job, plunked down $15,000 and
embarked on an expedition to ski across the Greenland ice sheet, the second largest ice
cap in the world. To do this, Akshay had to spend nearly every cent of his savings, leave
his family behind and spend a month dragging a 195 pound sled across 350 miles of
unforgiving frozen landscape.

In embarking on this journey, Akshay was very much realizing part of his dream. The
Greenland ice sheet was a proving ground for Akshay. He had been training for the trip
for three years, and conquering the ice cap was a milestone toward his next goal:
traversing the Patagonian Ice Sheet and then, in the future, the North Pole. Despite
being positively motived to undertake this challenge, the nature of the endeavor
guaranteed moments of pure grind.

“There were most definitely points in the journey when I did not want to be there, when
I was miserable and just wanted to go back home to the warmth and comfort of my
bed, my wife, my hot shower, sitting on a couch, all of those luxuries,” Akshay tells
Primer. “During those moments of misery, there was really no choice but to continue on.
The only way off the icecap was across, so I just worked on changing what I was
focusing on.”

Because of Akshay’s drive and plan, he was able to make this conscious choice to
readjust his focus.

“For me, drive is about staying focused on the future and working backwards from
there. I do not work from now to the future. I work from the future to the now. By doing
so, all the struggles and sacrifices become worth it, because the future vision lives within
me every day,” he explains.

“If and when doubt shows up, I look at the pain-pleasure dynamic of the decision I am
making,” says Akshay. “What is the pain that will result if I don't continue down this
path? What is the pleasure if I do? Generally, the thought of pain kills doubt and the
pleasure empowers me to continue onward.”

To Akshay, the pain of giving up on his journey across the ice cap would have meant
delaying or possibly ending his dream of “reaching the poles, exploring the harshest
continents on the plant and discovering the infinite capacity of the human spirit.” Back
at home, the pain of giving up on his own business would have meant working for
someone else for a paycheck instead of being his own boss. “The need to avoid that
pain and the desire to gain the immense pleasure from making those sacrifices
reinforces my decision and I continue forward as boldly (or stupidly, some would say) as
possible,” he says.

Akshay’s grind can represent our own. Opportunities, like the polar ice caps,
are out there—but for each year we hesitate, allowing ourselves to grow older
and more complacent, they diminish, slowly softening and melting away.
In many ways, Akshay’s grind can represent our own. Opportunities, like the polar ice
caps, are out there—but for each year we hesitate, allowing ourselves to grow older and
more complacent, they diminish, slowly softening and melting away. Making the choice
to follow your passion and stick to your plan will inevitably wind you up in the middle of
your own ice cap—exhausted, discouraged and wanting to quit. How you decide to act
in that moment is every bit as crucial as the decision you made at the beginning of the
journey.

Doing the Hard Work – The Grind

Even though you may feel like a latent rock star or an underappreciated genius, there
will be times when you are low, humble and just plain bored. There will be times when
everything seems like bullshit and nothing makes sense. There will be times when The
Plan seems like a pipe dream and The Drive seems like a drunken hallucination.
Recognizing these moments for what they are and persevering through them is a major
part of hard work. The Grind can happen all at once at the end of the year or once every
Wednesday for the next 10 years. But in the end, it doesn’t matter when you quit. If you
quit after five years of effort, the net result is the same as if you gave up two hours after
you started: you gave up on your dreams. Do the hard work. Don’t. Ever. Quit.