You don’t need to burn out to succeed

Susan David highlights that success — in life, in work, in creative pursuits — is often synonymous with keeping our noses to the grindstone as we rack up the requisite 10 000 hours of mastery that Malcolm Gladwell popularised.

There are many reasons to celebrate grit. The things we value most in life, like meaningful relationships, and pursuing work that matter to us, or building the requisite skill to thrive in life and work, those things require commitment and persistence to get you through challenging times. Sometimes persisting even when faced with failure and disappointment, delivers incredible results in terms of innovation or personal growth and transformation.

I’m sure most of us have heard the story of how Thomas Edison churned out more than 1 000 unsuccessful prototypes before inventing a working lightbulb. Where would we be today, if he had thrown up his hands in exasperation and quit after his 500^th unsuccessful attempt? Thankfully, Edison had a bigger vision. He did not consider his failed attempts failures. He saw them as progress towards the final invention and we owe him such gratitude for his tenacity.

However, despite its many virtues, it is possible to overvalue grittiness. Susan David postulates that the self-awareness to know when to quit is just as important as the discipline to hold on and grit your way through. There are times in your life, when perseverance doesn’t lead to you thriving, but instead to you burning out. Perseverance is a necessary ingredient for human thriving, but we must be thoughtful about what we’re persevering at and why. There’s nothing admirable about working doggedly toward a goal that no longer matters to you or staying in a relationship that no longer serves you; just as there’s nothing shameful about re-evaluating your path and course-correcting.

Both history and life experience tell us that an unwavering grittiness can bring as many negative consequences as positive ones. As early as 1965, Lyndon Johnson privately admitted that the Vietnam War was unwinnable, yet his stubborn determination not to “be the first American president to lose a war” pulled him deeper into a conflict that dragged on for another bloody decade.

And on a more personal level, think of how many people pursue careers that don’t bring them joy only to please their parents, or how many women sacrifice their own dreams and careers to fulfill homebound duties out of a sense of obligation. No one can doubt their strength of will or character, but what sacrifices were they called to make along the way that left them resentful and less fulfilled? When we sacrifice what’s important to us, we often encounter resentment somewhere along the line.

I think for most of us, the global pandemic has created the impression that what is required to “get through this” is grit. We need to grit our way through this thing to the other side. We keep holding our breath in the hope that things will get better, and that we will “return to normal”. But what is normal anyway? And if you slowed it down for a second and allowed yourself some time to reflect on it, you might discover that a lot about your “old life” pre-pandemic may not have been working for you either. Perhaps you were already gritting your way through things that you told yourself you have no choice about.

For many of us, the 2020 pandemic has resulted in huge disruptions in our everyday work and life. Employees have been pulled out of the office and forced to work from home. People have had to find ways to navigate an even bigger blurring of the lines between work and personal life, with schedules that required us to stay productive whilst homeschooling (if you have kids), and creating your own resources at home to support your work. Not only have we lost loved ones, we’ve lost jobs, income, connection, and our sense of what feels healthy and normal.

Amidst all this chaos, people are working longer and harder than ever. According to a study conducted by the ADP Research Institute, in 2021 the average employee is logging 9.2 hours of unpaid overtime per week, up from 7.3 hours in 2020. While people are working more, causing a “dramatic spike in productivity”, this is “unsustainable in the long term”, says ADP chief economist Nela Richardson.

In a recent Forbes article Kristin Stoller explains that workers are putting in these extra hours either to compensate for colleagues who lost or left their jobs, or simply to cope with the extra workload the pandemic created. Globally, North America saw the most significant uptick in unpaid overtime with employees averaging nearly nine hours of free work per week. That is a 125% year-over-year increase. The Asia-Pacific region, however, still leads, with its workforce averaging almost ten hours of unpaid labour each week.

Sarah Hoek reminds us that this is not a trend unique to the current pandemic era though. The pandemic has simply amplified the problem. As early as 2014, James Surowiecki wrote about the cult of overwork. Surowiecki postulates that overworking has become a “credential of prosperity”; perpetuating the idea that we are only successful when we are pulling longer hours and achieving more than we did the day before. In 2019, the World Health Organization formally recognised burnout as an “occupational phenomenon” resulting “from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”. For most of us, exhaustion has become a status symbol.

Nathaniel Branden explains that our society is set up that way. When you run into someone at the grocery store, and they tell you how hard they’ve been working on a project at work, or how much overtime they’ve been putting in – and sometimes they even brag about how they are surviving on very little sleep – you are impressed. You praise them for their efforts, and you think they are successful.

Yet, if you were to run into someone at the grocery store, and they tell you that they took a week off to spend time with their wife, and they share how they start their mornings with a coffee outside on the veranda, and that they might go for long walks, or cook dinner together, you feel at a loss for what to say about that. You wouldn’t praise them for prioritising their relationship. You might even secretly think they are lazy or lucky to get time off. What a luxury. You couldn’t afford to do that.

In the Psychologists Off the Clock podcast Hill and Schonbrun explain that striving is that internal push you feel to simultaneously be the perfect employee, parent, partner etc. It’s an attempt at keeping all the balls in the air no matter what. This does not mean that having goals or desires is bad. However, there is a difference between healthy and unhealthy striving. In healthy striving “we are battling for what we care about”. In a way, we are honouring our deepest core values. In unhealthy striving on the other hand, “we are battling against ourselves and against the present moment”. In other words, we are resisting reality and we are fighting against ourselves instead of honouring ourselves.

So how do we know if we are striving in a healthy way or not? Hill says it’s not so much about what we do, but rather how we feel when we are working towards our goals. Unhealthy striving is feeling like you are doing a lot, but you still derive no satisfaction or contentment from what you do. You are simply going through the motions. Signs that you might be striving in an unhealthy way, include feeling nothing you do is ever enough, regardless of how many tasks you tick off, feeling guilty for taking time off and resting, and when you do succeed, feeling like it still isn’t enough or that you could have done better.

In contrast, positive striving cultivates “feelings of contentedness and wholeness”, where there is value in the processes of life, and not just in the outcomes. When we are striving in a healthy way, we are pausing to take in the view, we are present to the moment. We might be working hard, but we also know when to surrender the hard work in favour of balance and rest. We feel proud of our output, and we can celebrate our achievements or milestones as we make progress on our most important goals.

In his book, The Dip, Seth Godin challenges the idea that winners never quit. He explains that winners quit all the time. In fact, part of success is also knowing when to quit something. It’s important to distinguish between a temporary dip – i.e., where things are moving slow or are in a bit of a lull, or they feel hard, but ultimately if you keep pushing, you will reap the rewards – and a real dead-end – where things are not going to get better, and you are simply stuck spinning your wheels in one place.

You have a limited amount of time, money, and energy per day. So, quitting the things that don’t serve you, is an essential strategy to ensure you have capacity to take advantage of better opportunities. Before taking on any big challenge, it’s worthwhile to set up a quitting contract with yourself to predetermine how much time, money and energy you are willing to spend before quitting. Godin reckons it’s vital to make these agreements with yourself before you find yourself in a challenging situation; otherwise you might react on how you are feeling in the moment, and quit for all the wrong reasons. When you have a solid agreement of commitment with yourself about how much “pain” you are willing to endure, you are less likely to quit for the wrong reasons when things get tough.

When and how do you know that it is time to quit? If a longstanding commitment no longer feels rewarding to you, do yourself the dignity of taking those feelings seriously. Consider what is no longer resonating with you. Is your work process no longer pleasurable? Is the future you’re working toward no longer the one you want? Then consider what kind of future you do want. Consider who it is that you do want to be, and where it is that you do want to go. Quitting can be a hard choice to make, but often it’s a brave one, as well.

The first step is always to ensure that what you are committed to aligns with your own personal core guiding life values.When your commitments align with your core values, you are more likely to experience healthy striving where you are working towards something that matters or gives you personal meaning. You are also less likely to want to quit, even when it’s tough going.

The second step is to also have deep commitment to the practice of self-care. If you find yourself resenting the commitments you’ve made, then ask yourself who you are doing them for? If you find yourself demotivated and uninspired, take some time to check in with your body and your own energy levels? Are you taking care of yourself? Or are you neglecting self-care in favour of “getting more done”? It’s ok to have boundaries in place, and to allow time for rest and self-care.

Sometimes you experience a dip in motivation simply because you are overworked and have not invested in sufficient self-care. Take time out to rest and rejuvenate. Sleep, recreation, healthy meals, and regular exercise, are all critical ingredients in building resilience.

We often think that if we sleep less and push harder, we will get more done. The opposite tends to be true though. You are basically running on an empty cup. When you over-extend yourself, you deplete your own energy, and end up having less capacity to care about your work or care for others. By filling your cup first, you increase your capacity for taking on more work and/or caring for others. The adage that you should prioritise self-care so that people get the best of you, instead of what’s left of you, rings true here.

Letting go of unhealthy striving, Schonbrun clarifies, does not mean that “you’re not shooting for big goals” or not “trying to make important contributions and push yourself”, but rather, learning how to strive in a more balanced way. You honour what’s most important to you and you also allow yourself permission to be human. No-one is perfect. And no-one gets it right all the time. We all need to catch our breath sometimes.

References:

1. ADP Research Institute. (2021). People at Work 2021: A Global Workforce View. April, 2021. Available online at: https://www.adpri.org/assets/people-at-work-2021-a-global-workforce-view/
2. Branden, N. (1985). Honouring the Self: The Psychology of Confidence and Respect. Simon & Schuster.
3. Breytenbach, C. (2020). The true meaning of Resilience. Available online at: https://chantalbreytenbach.com/true_meaning_of_resilience/
4. Breytenbach, C. (2020). Without grit, talent remains unmet potential. Available online at: https://chantalbreytenbach.com/without_grit_talent_remains_unmet_potential/
5. Breytenbach, C. (2021). Embracing the Winter of the Mind. Available online at: https://chantalbreytenbach.com/embracing_the_winter_of_the_mind/
6. Breytenbach, C. (2021). Emotional agility and self-care in times of complexity. Available online at: https://chantalbreytenbach.com/emotional_agility_and_self_care_in_times_of_complexity/
7. David, S. (2016). Emotional Agility: Get unstuck, embrace change, and thrive in work and life. New York: Penguin Random House.
8. Duckworth, A. L. (2016). Grit: The power of passion and perseverance. Toronto: HarperCollins.
9. Godin, S. (2007). The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick). Portfolio.
10. Hill, D. & Schonbrun, Y. (2021). Heal Unhealthy Striving with Diana and Yael. Psychologists off the Clock. Available online at: https://offtheclockpsych.com/heal-unhealthy-striving/
11. Hoek, S. (2021). Why you don’t need to burn out to succeed. Maverick Life, May 2021. Available online at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-05-27-why-you-dont-need-to-burn-out-to-succeed/
12. Stoller, K. (2021). Employees Are Working An Extra Day In Unpaid Overtime Each Week. Forbes, April, 2021. Available online at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinstoller/2021/04/28/employees-are-working-an-extra-day-in-unpaid-overtime-each-week/?sh=529e688635cc
13. Surowiecki, J. (2014). The cult of overwork. The New Yorker, January 2014. Available online at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/01/27/the-cult-of-overwork
14. World Health Organization. (2019). Burn-out an “occupational phenomenon”: International Classification of Diseases. Available online at: https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon-international-classification-of-diseases