Do the work!

Talent is overrated! Too many times people chicken out of “difficult” tasks because they wrongly believe that they need an enormous amount of sheer natural talent to do well in those tasks. It is very clear that many students dread mathematics or the physical and natural sciences. When faced with endless lines of symbols or equations, what is your default reaction? To look the task in the face and say “I can do this?” Or do you simply fold and walk away? “There is time for everything” is a well-worn cliché. Agreed, there is a time to walk away, there is a time to stand back and take on the challenges that life presents us. One of the best [predictors of success is how many times we decide to stay and do the work, measured against how many times we turn our backs on what we were supposed to do because we feel it is too difficult or demanding.

We may rationalize, and tell ourselves that this is not just for us, or we are not interested, or sometime in the future we are going to work on it. That day somehow doesn't just quite come. So we defer to the “simple” tasks, and the low-hanging fruit. It is easy. It is fun. It demands no perseverance and grit. The question is, what kind of a person are you becoming by focusing only (or mostly) on low-value activities? How confident does it feel to stay in your comfort zone where no growth is? The answer - if you are honest - would be, “not very confident” and “not very good.” Life will not change for us unless we change. There is a certain sense of fulfillment we derive from accomplishing difficult tasks. Any wonder why most of the high-status professions are in fields that demand a lot of grit and perseverance and are peppered with very difficult tasks? The astronaut, the neurosurgeon, and the quantum physicist. What do they all have in common? Perseverance. Grit. Discipline…..and then, passion.?

Doing what you love is another well-worn cliché which is thrown around as a necessary and sufficient parameter for success. But where does the love come from? It comes from staying at something for an extended period of time until we master it, then we become passionate about it…and then maybe love doing it. Before we get to the part where we begin to love what we do, we must stay at it for hundreds if not thousands of hours…in most cases. Of course there are exceptions, like people born with a natural talent and aptitude for certain activities. Even then, these must be developed with constant effort and discipline. It is this effort mixed with discipline that continues to hone the talent and lead to world class mastery. So how well we feel doing something is not an indicator of whether we should continue doing it or not, or whether it is right for us or not. What is important is the person we are becoming by continuously engaging in those activities. Remember the famous Nike slogan?

Yea, “Just Do it!”

Alex James

May 13, 2022