Enthusiasm is Common. Endurance is Rare.
Sociologist Josh Morgan conducted a rather interesting study on the number and status of podcasts on iTunes from 2005–2015.
Here are some key highlights:
The point is this:
Enthusiasm is common.
Endurance is rare.
People start things all the time — but they rarely “finish” them.
In her groundbreaking book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance Angela Duckworth explains an interaction between herself and a young man who had a dream of starting a podcast for entrepreneurs.
This college student declared he would stop at nothing to create, produce, and sustain this new podcast. But Duckworth pressed him about what would happen if he lost motivation or became tired by the project.
The younger student simply replied he would just start another podcast.
The young man believed this was what mattered — the relentless drive to simply create “another” project when he began to lose interest.
But the real value lies in endurance with what you’re working on, now.
What really matters is staying with a project even after the initial honeymoon flush of motivation wears off.
This is where most people quit. Departing to chase another rush of the feel-good dopamine of starting something new, they leave behind another unfinished project in their wake.
Another new project. Another loss of motivation. Another towel thrown in. Repeat.
Enthusiasm is common — everyone starts something. A blog, a podcast, an Etsy shop, a diet, a New Year’s resolution.
Long-term consistency beats short-term intensity. This is what truly successful people excel at — staying committed when they get bored, lonely, unmotivated, or discouraged.
The truth is, these are the feelings that accompany success.
Everything worth having is on the opposite of pain, hard work, and struggle.
The extent of your success is directly related to the extent of your willingness to endure pain.
Commit-to-mastery is a rare concept.
In a world where the jack-of-all-trades is king, professionals and experts are becoming rarer and rarer (although all the LinkedIn titles and buzz words in author bio’s would make you think differently).
Most people just dabble.
“Dabbling” is easy. It’s all the glory with none of the work; all the fun with none of the risks.
First of all, if you’re just a “dabbler” you don’t have to fully commit to grueling, exhausting practices and creating a substantial body of work.
Secondly, “dabbling” means that if you fail, you have an excuse to justify your failure. “It was just a little something I wanted to try,” a dabbler might joke uncomfortably when pressed about their latest project that went up in flames. They don’t want to admit they gave their all to something and failed.
But this is not a characteristic of true success. “Dabbling” is not part of the formula.
Real experts train themselves all the time, whether they’re sick, tired, exhausted, unmotivated, or just bored. And actually, this is a fairly accurate description of what the road to success is actually like.
Steve Jobs once said, “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”
Real success comes when you keep going despite feeling entirely over whatever you’re doing.
Perseverance. Tenacity. Grit.
Success comes after the months and years of absolutely no traction — no new followers, no sales, no notoriety or validation that what you’re doing is actually making a difference at all.
This is where most people stop. It’s not fun — it’s boring, exhausting, and really damn unsexy.
Hence, most people dabble. They don’t want to pay the price of success.
When my wife and I moved to South Korea for a year to teach English, life simplified immensely. It was easy to see what was really important to me, and what deep down, I actually wasn’t that into.
Eventually, my life boiled down to 4 things — work, writing, exercise, and quality time with my wife. That was it. And that’s what I began to excel in.
The offers still came in — podcasts to partner with. High-paying private tutoring lessons. Basketball coach. Remote career coach. Guest blogging.
I said no to all of them. I had decided I was done “dabbling” and began to take a serious look at every opportunity that came my way. If it wasn’t a “Hell yes!” then it was a no. As it turned out, most of them were actually “no’s.”
This is the first step to endurance — only committing to projects you’re bafflingly excited about. And nothing else.
If you continue committing to small-time, could-be-fun opportunities, you’ll never achieve the momentum and the severe take-no-prisoners attitude you need to reach higher plateaus of success you’ve never reached before.
Pick your projects carefully. Because once you do — that’s it. You’re booked, indefinitely. No new projects, clients, or opportunities. Sorry, we’re closed.
Everyone can produce some sort of action towards a goal. People do it all the time.
But the right action — saying no to good-but-not-great opportunities, constantly improving yourself, getting back to work even when work is tiring and boring…
That’s rare.
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Enthusiasm is Common. Endurance is Rare.
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