Stop the Grind

“Cause I’m out here grindin’.”  --Akon

            Grinding has become all the rage. When rappers, golfers, and corporate America use the word, you know it has some legs. Grind has become an expectation. And while grinding can be effective as a short-term spark, I believe it is causing many to burn-out. It’s simply effort on steroids. An overdose of grit. It is putting your head down and hitting a wall over and over again, with the hope that eventually the wall will bust open. But instead, it will probably cause you more harm than the wall. Grinding is like sharpening a pencil; if you try too hard, you will jam the machine and break the pencil.

            Here is an exercise to try. Hold your cell phone out in front of you, so that your arm is perfectly straight.  Hold the phone for about a minute…….

            How did that feel? Was it painful? Probably not. But imagine if you held it for an hour. Would your arm start to hurt? Probably. How about a day? For sure. Can you imagine if you held the phone for a year straight? It would become potentially deadly. When we hold onto things, even the little things, they can manifest and fester inside of us, eventually becoming major problems. That’s the grind. And it’s not healthy. Consider these statistics from Deloitte:

  • 91 percent of respondents say having an unmanageable amount of stress or frustration negatively impacts the quality of their work

  • 83 percent of respondents say burnout from work can negatively impact their personal relationships

  • 87 percent of professionals surveyed say they have passion for their current job, but 64 percent say they are frequently stressed, dispelling the myth that passionate employees are immune to stress or burnout

  • Nearly 70 percent of professionals feel their employers are not doing enough to prevent or alleviate burnout within their organization

  • 21 percent of respondents say their company does not offer any programs or initiatives to prevent or alleviate burnout

  • 84 percent of millennials say they have experienced burnout at their current job

Perhaps this statistic during the pandemic is most telling: 76% of employed Americans report they are currently experiencing worker burnout.

            I am not saying we shouldn’t do hard things. Of course there are moments of grind if we want to achieve anything great. But the key is not to stay there. And far too many do.

            So, if we shouldn’t grind, what should we do? I believe there is a distinction between grind and grit. Grit involves passion and perseverance, strength of character, and a resolve that expands beyond one’s self—community, team, family, etc. Gritty people have the resilience to reset, rest, and get better. But grind? These people limit their time there. Nobody should grind their way through life unless they have to. If you don’t have to, find another path. An alternate route. Go toward efficiency over busyness. Know when to quit. And when you find something that doesn’t feel like a grind day to day but still helps you achieve what you want, run like hell toward it.

Brian Levenson