The 3 Elements of Toughness

If you went to Catholic school, you likely heard the Nuns teach a discipline called "stick-to-itiveness."

It was the quality of continuing on, even if the task at hand was difficult or unpleasant. The Nuns wanted students to cultivate the discipline and resolve to concentrate even harder amidst adversity.

But is this always the right approach?

Best-selling author Annie Duke recently penned a book called "Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away." Duke uses behavioral science, keen-eyed analysis, and thoughtful examples to explain why good quitting skills are increasingly essential in today's workplace — debunking the cliche that winners never quit, and quitters never win.

Quitting and stick-to-itiveness may be entirely different perspectives, but they're equally important and essential to our lives as leaders.

Neither works without the another.

We all need to know when to walk away, and we also need to understand when to put our heads down and keep working despite the struggle.

Quitting may shine a negative light on our identity, as when we do so, we often feel like failures or disappointments. But when we stick with something that doesn't work for too long, we're often left to wonder why we didn't walk away sooner.

It's a huge balancing act that requires both courage and conviction.

While stick-to-itiveness was certainly a nice way for the Nuns to teach mental and physical resolve, it also has its shortcomings that ultimately come down to understanding the three true elements of toughness.

Being tough means:

1. Doing the most important things first every day. Identify them and take action.

2. Approach your work like a professional, not an amateur.

3. Work without extra motivation.

We all want to be consistent in our behaviors and actions, but most importantly, we want to be correct.

When we first focus on this and on actually being in the right place, only then do we really allow stick-to-itiveness to take over.