Continuous Effort Not Strength or Intelligence is the Key to Unlocking Our Potential
The potential of a person with talent can hardly be overestimated. Talent is a wonderful gift and those with talent make extraordinary contributions to humankind.
Intelligence is right up there with talent. It's often the most intelligent people who make the biggest difference in life on planet earth.
And who can dispute the value of strength? Isn't it the strong who survive? Isn't it the strong who finish well?
The talented have created inspiring music, they've written life-changing books, and they've delivered unforgettable performances.
The intelligent have made life-altering discoveries and their inventions have changed the world.
They've helped us understand what was previously shrouded in mystery and darkness.
They've helped move us from a world of ignorance to a world of incredible knowledge and understanding.
The strong have weathered obstacles and setbacks to achieve what few others could.
We should take a moment to commend and appreciate the talented and the intelligent and the strong who have walked this earth before us and with us now.
We should be careful to give talent and intelligence and strength their due. And not judge them as the unfair possession of the elite and privileged.
But we should not give intelligence and strength and talentmore than their due. If so, we might miss the likely greater contribution that comes through continuous effort.
You might be curious why I chose the image of Malbork Castle in Malbork, Poland for the background to the Winston Churchill quotation. I chose it for several reasons.
- It's the largest castle in the world
- It's the largest building in the world constructed of bricks
- It contains more than 30 million bricks
I chose it for the background because it represents what is possible through the slow, steady, dedicated, and continuous effort of laying one brick after another.
Thirty million times.
If 10,000 bricks could be laid every day, it would still require more than 8 years to lay every brick in Malbork Castle. That's a lot of continuous effort.
That's a lot of ongoing commitment. That's a lot of dedication to the goal.
Sir Winston would argue that continuous effort has a greater potential for the realization of personal goals than either intelligence or strength.
So why would he make this claim? I would suggest 3 reasons.
Most of us don't have an abundance of strength or intelligence
I'm not suggesting that we don't have some intelligence or that we don't have some strength. No doubt we have a measure of both.
But most of us don't have an abundance of these gifts. Most of us are, shall we say, average. Average intelligence. Average strength.
Which means that if we're going to make a big contribution or we hope to reach our potential, we'll need to leverage continuous effort most of all.
We're more likely to reach our potential through what we're more likely to possess
We're more likely to possess time, energy, and determination.
We don't need to be highly talented to achieve our goals and personal potential.
Nor do we need to be highly intelligent. Nor do we need super-human strength.
They're nice bonuses.
But not only are they not required, we're not likely to possess them in abundance anyway.
We need not mourn the fact that we don't have an abundance of natural gifts
It would be nice to have natural talent, natural intelligence, or natural strength. Or all three.
But the fact is we don't need any of these in abundance. We can go far with continuous effort even if we lack a lot of natural gifts and abilities.
Grit
Back in 2013, a TedTalk was delivered by Angela Duckworth, a professor of psychology at The University of Pennsylvania.
Her TedTalk has been viewed by more than 18 million people.
She went on to write a book after her TedTalk entitled, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.
In her book she argues that the most determinative factor in the achievement of goals is the characteristic she calls "grit."
She defines "grit" as "passion and perseverance for very long-term goals."
She's not contending that talent, intelligence, background, income, experience, and education are not factors in goal-reaching.
She simply contends that "grit" is the most important factor.
That what we accomplish may depend more on our passion and perseverance than on our talent, intelligence, and natural strength and ability.
I suspect Mr. Churchill would agree with Ms. Duckworth.
I also suspect he would equate Duckworth's "grit" with his "continuous effort."
He'd probably say they're pretty much the same thing.
Conclusion
If we've been blessed with an abundance of talent, we should develop that talent.
We should be good stewards of our talent and develop it accordingly.
Seeking experiences and opportunities to bring out the latent potential within us.
It will help move us toward our goals.
If we've been blessed with an abundance of intelligence, we should be all means get as much education as we can handle and afford.
Looking for ways and means to develop our intelligence and leverage it in ways that serve people.
If we've been blessed with a high degree of natural strength and stamina, we should not squander such gifts.
But we need not despair if we possess just run-of-the-mill talent, intelligence, and strength.
Those with just an average bestowal of these gifts have done extraordinarily well.
Mostly by continuous effort. Mostly be setting a reasonable goal and staying with it until it was reached.
Even natural gifts require continuous effort for success
We should not end this discussion without saying that even those with high degrees of natural gifts—even they must put in huge amounts of continuous effort to excel.
Their natural abilities may give them a head-start and might make the journey a bit easier.
But the uncommonly intelligent and the uncommonly strong achieve what they do mostly because of their uncommonly continuous effort.
Talent alone won't do it. Intelligence alone won't do it. Strength alone won't do it.
Continuous effort is more likely the deciding factor in helping us reach the goals we seek.
Call it grit, discipline, persistence, pluck, resolution, determination, or mettle.
Or call it continuous effort along with Mr. Churchill.
Whatever called, it's a good reminder that most of us are going to reach our goals because we stay the course in the face of obstacles, failures, and setbacks.
Slow and steady still wins the race. Life is a marathon—not a sprint.
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