Is Motivation Enough?

Can you get through any challenge through sheer determination, grit, and force of will? The important question is actually: Should you?

Modern society places high value in those who exhibit feats of great determination and effort in the face of hardship and difficulty. Those who overcome huge obstacles to achieve greatness are lauded and praised.

We all love a great underdog story.

Ad astra per aspera. To the stars through difficulty.

In your daily life, however, it may not be such a good idea to venerate achievement through difficulty. At the very least, it's highly inefficient.

Do you honor the person who pulled the door open even though the sign said "PUSH"?

You should identify and play to your strengths.

Pursue activities and jobs and careers that are tightly aligned with your natural talents, gifts and innate hardwiring.

The identification and pursuit of your vocation is the ideal path.

Vocation: [Noun] A strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation.

You should also identify your weaknesses.

Know what activities, jobs and career tracks are misaligned with your talents and innate hardwiring. If you are a highly creative person, you'll be much happier — and more successful — if you avoid tasks devoid of the call for creative talent. Skip the forensic accounting job at the IRS and instead go for the product design gig at the hot new tech startup.

It's common for many of us to face challenges that are not within our wheelhouse. That's a normal part of modern living. You can tap into your will power, motivation, and grit to get through it — or you can use your innate abilities to find ways to accomplish the desired outcome in a way consistent with your hardwiring.

There are nine ways to skin a cat, so find the method that most closely aligns with your own talents.

Is motivation enough to get you through challenges and obstacles?

Is determination and grit going to be adequate to help you reach your goals? Maybe. But why should it? Why should you waste all that time, energy and effort pulling open a door that has a "PUSH" sign on it?

Determine your strengths and play to them. Identify your weaknesses and skip the approaches that rely on needless expenditures of strength and willpower to get things done.

Doing things the hard way is like trying to nail gravy to a tree.