How the "Heroic Effort" Fallacy Is Holding You Back

There are certain productivity fallacies that we all fall for. First among them is the "heroic effort" fallacy. If you give in to it, you will lose. But if you overcome it, you can double or triple your results. Let's look at how it works.

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I. The "Heroic Effort" Fallacy

The "heroic effort" fallacy is the idea that we need to push hard when it counts. If we succeed, we will earn splendid rewards. Or so the story goes.

You can see this in the tech world with the hackathon mentality. "Let's all sit down for a weekend and create some magic!" But an allnighter and a dozen Red Bulls later, you are still no Mark Zuckerberg.

I noticed the same thing when I started training BJJ. There were certain students that if a competition was around the corner, would train nonstop, sometimes twice a day. "Let's go hard or go home!"

But once the competition was over, the same students wouldn't show up for class four weeks in a row.

Not surprisingly, they rarely took home any medals.

II. Success Is Unsexy

The truth is that success is unsexy. It is doing the same couple of things every day without fail.

It is doing your 20-minute bodyweight routine every day.

It is cold-calling 10 new clients each day.

It is writing 1000 words for your book every day.

It is talking to 3 attractive strangers each day.

We don't like that. This sounds way too repetitive and way too long-term. We would much rather make a heroic effort now and be rewarded immediately.

But success doesn't care for what you want. It has its own laws. You either adhere to these or you won't get anywhere near it.

Achievers understand this. They understand that the more boring and drawn-out the process feels, the more likely they will succeed.

Thus, they monitor themselves. When they get into hero mode, they stop themselves. When they chip away at the same couple of tasks every day, they congratulate themselves.

That is the crucial mindset shift.

III. How Our Narratives Favor Heroic Efforts

It is not just that we are personally more drawn to heroic efforts. It is also that our cultural narratives favor them.

Just think about Hollywood movies. We see Rocky Balboa prepare for the fight with his opponent in a 2-minute sequence. But the actual fight is a 10-minute sequence. We want to watch the heroic effort, not the years of daily training leading up to it.

You also see this in documentaries, about musicians for example. They focus on the breakthroughs — the signing, the hit single, the legendary concert at Madison Square Garden. But the ten years of daily practice before that? Barely get a mention.

You can observe this in interviews, too. High achievers, once they are successful, start to forget what an unspectacular grind it was in the beginning. The more time passes, the more they become a walking highlight reel.

Cultural storytelling will always favor the big push while painting over the mundane routine. But it is the routine — the doing of the same few things every day — that gets you there.

Learn to distrust the culture, and keep at the boring thing.

I had a friend visiting last weekend, it was nice. We went to a couple of restaurants, took a few long walks, and visited a museum. But we also worked together (which was pleasant itself). The same few things, every day.

Talk to you next week!

Niels