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When to Walk Away
(click for podcast) (7:21 min.)

Tenacity is generally a very positive attribute. We equate it with courage, determination, perseverance, grit, and more. We know that failure is more about giving up and not trying. When we read about successful people, the stories always seem to talk about how they refused to quit, stuck to their guns, and kept pushing.

We don’t even know how accurate these stories are, but we hear that Col. Sanders failed to sell his KFC recipe 1,000 times, but kept pushing and finally sold it. Edison went through 1,000 light bulbs before succeeding, and so on. In this light, tenacity seems to be absolutely necessary for success. And this is where it gets tricky.

There is a point where tenacity turns toxic, and begins to take us the other direction. You can visualize it as a bell curve or a hill. Once you reach the apex, you start going down the other side. There’s a phrase for this: diminishing returns. More and more work for less and less return. This is where it becomes more about stubbornness and an aversion to looking at alternative strategies.

There are many things in life that are like this. As Socrates once said, “all things in moderation.” A pretty obvious example would be eating; necessary for life itself. Food keeps us healthy and alive; up to a point. Once we’ve reached the apex, we start going down the other side. It starts to make us unhealthy and can shorten our lives.



So what becomes the most important skill we can develop around this is determining where that apex is before we go past it. There isn’t one single thing that fits all situations or people. It really depends on circumstances and our desired outcome.

One way we can see our tenacity being tested is when we start thinking about how much we can put up with or tolerate. If those thoughts are coming up, we’re getting close to the top of the hill. If we’re not experiencing any negative feelings, and have a level of optimism and tenacity that buoys us up in the face of rejection, that’s healthy tenacity.

When we’re feeling beaten down and exhausted, it probably means we’ve stayed too long at that particular party. There’s a point where all we’re doing is beating our head against a wall. We need to recognize futility, and yet not use that as an excuse to quit early. There are places and situations that require more tenacity than others. Continuing to bang on a locked door or pushing the elevator button after it’s lit just uses up your energy and doesn’t further your desired outcome.

I’ve also heard people looking at resilience in a similar way. That being resilient isn’t necessarily a good thing. This is where we need to be more accurate in our definitions. In fact, resilience only speaks to our rebounding from something. It doesn’t include the something that we’re rebounding from. So, since it’s purely about our getting back up, I wouldn’t put it in the same camp as tenacity.

Tenacity is all about sticking to something, and doesn’t have a built-in “end point.” That’s where we get into trouble. We need to think about this, and ascertain where we need to draw the line in the sand. This means being in touch with where our own breaking points might be. That way we can plan to stick to something until it starts making us sick, proves to be foolishness, proves to be futile, etc.



Something else that’s important to recognize is that we apply our tenacity in many areas, from staying in a job that’s burning us out to staying in a relationship, hoping things will get better. What makes this difficult and complicated is how our values and internal narratives can get involved in the justifications for continuing.

I’ve heard rationale like, “oh I can handle it, it’s not too bad, maybe things will change,” and more. We don’t want to give up on things, but sometimes we need to see that those things gave up on us long ago. Our desire for control can enter the picture, and we can feel like sticking to whatever we’re sticking to shows that we’re in control. If we were to let go, we’d be letting go of control. Sometimes it’s about our identity story, and we want to identify ourselves as someone who doesn’t give up. In this narrative, giving up would equate to losing our identity.

So you can see that tenacity is quite a moving target, and there’s no simple one size fits all that’s even close to realistic. We have to remain conscious, aware, and able to stand back and analyze if our tenacity is helping or hurting us.

Look at your values and what fits and doesn’t fit with them. Look at your sense of self and what stories you might be telling yourself that keep you banging your head on that wall. As always, ask yourself “why” a lot, so you can drill beyond your justifications and rationalizations.

When you take this time to step back and analyze what you’re doing, you just might come up with a different avenue of pursuit. Maybe instead of banging on that locked door tenaciously, you could walk over to an open window and climb right in.


Want to learn more about how to become the best you possible? How your communication can hold you back or catapult you forward? Come visit the web site, or better yet, contact me and see how we can design a program to fit your needs and desired outcomes.

     - Ian J. Blei

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Resource Links:

The Integram - the podcast series

Kind Ambition - 3rd Edition
 

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