The Part Nobody Talks About

Every success story has an origin and a finish. The scrappy beginning. The breakthrough moment. The result that made it all worth it.

What gets left out is the middle.

The part where the energy has drained and the results haven't arrived yet. Where every reasonable instinct says quit. Where the gap between what you hoped for and what is happening feels like evidence that something is wrong.

Angela Duckworth's research on grit at the University of Pennsylvania has influenced thinking in psychology, business, and sports coaching. Grit, she argues, is not the willingness to work hard. It is the commitment to stay with a worthy goal through the long, unglamorous, often discouraging stretch between starting and succeeding. The middle is where grit is tested. And it's where most efforts end, not because the idea was wrong, but because the discomfort of the middle was misread as a signal to stop.

Signs you might be in the messy middle rather than on the wrong path:

●  The core idea still makes sense when you strip away the frustration.

●  There is at least one person who still believes in it.

●  What's missing feels like a condition that could be found, not a fundamental flaw that can't be fixed.

Reflective Questions

●  Think of something you quit that, in retrospect, might have just needed more time. What would have changed if you had stayed?

●  Is there something you're considering abandoning right now that might be in the messy middle rather than genuinely broken?

●  What is the difference, for you personally, between healthy persistence and stubbornness? How do you tell them apart?

Listen to Episode 8 of Move Toward: Unlocked for the story of Post-It Notes, a middle school food drive, and the eighth grader who said we can do this and meant it.