I loathe the “you just need grit to get what you want” pep talks.
I abhor “Dream it, want it the most, and it WILL happen” advice.
Because here’s the reality:
People who achieve their dreams and get what they want are NOT always the grittiest, nor the people that “wanted it” the most, nor the hardest workers.
Also, I regularly meet people who had just as much, if not more, grit and determination and creative ideas as some of the most successful people out there, and they didn’t get that career, or that fellowship, or that big sale of their project, that far less talented or determined people have achieved.
And as arrogant this sounds, I have met oh-so-many people in jobs that I deserved way, way more than they did, based on my experience, talent and grit.
I touched on this a bit in my blog back in May, You are smart! when I wrote:
In her first book, Michelle Obama noted that she has been at the table with leaders of countries, corporations and foundations, that as a lawyer she worked with powerful corporate folks and served on corporate boards, that she’s met oh-so-many people from the United Nations, and she has realized, they are not that smart, they are not brainy super humans. It isn’t to say that these leaders aren’t capable of the work at hand, that none of them should be in those roles, etc. But they really are not THAT smart, no hugely smarter than YOU.
I’m much closer to 60 than I want to be, and as I’ve lamented oh-so-many times, the last 20 years, with just a few brief exceptions, have regularly gutted me professionally. I keep trying to be at peace with how these 20 years have gone, and how I’m not where I intended to be professionally speaking, and while I’ve made some good progress, I still have moments where I get lost in mourning.
This piece from Freakonomics Radio, about failure, about how grit is NOT always enough to get you to your professional dream, was what I really needed. I found it liberating. I strongly urge you to listen to it. Lots of interviews with people who have failed, who don’t have a “but, eventually, I got there!” endings. I didn’t feel hopeless afterward – I felt comforted.
The reality is that, for about 20 years, my life regularly turned out WAY better, professionally-speaking, than I had ever dreamed. So many of those fantastic jobs I had felt like they just dropped in my lap, that I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. I’m so grateful for those experiences. I just wish I’d leveraged them a bit better with an eye to what I would need later.
Anyway…
Also see these previous blogs of mine, if you want to see just how much I’ve struggled with failure and aging and, sometimes, my own advice for dealing with it:
Gen X, struggling for employment? I hear you.
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