Sweat & Effort vs Overthinking & Less Effort

"Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction." ~ John F. Kennedy

"We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort." ~ Jesse Owens

"Overthinking is often a product of underdoing." ~ Yehuda Berg

"Sometimes you're overthinking, you convince yourself to get out of it and you're like, "Ah I shoulda did that!" You can't live life with regrets. Sometimes you just gotta indulge. But in the same breath, you gotta have restraint and self-control too." ~ Michael B. Jordan

You have a choice in life. One demands sweat, agony, and constant striving. The other gives you the promise of brilliance and strategy but usually leaves you paralyzed with choice. The choice between these two methods "sweat and effort" and "overthinking and less effort" is the one that will leave you shining above the crowd or stuck in mediocrity.

The first route is ugly but efficient. It is for those who love the grind, who do the hours even when they do not want to. Athletes who practice past fatigue, students who re-write their notes until the knowledge is seared into their minds, workers who hone their trade until their hands move with exactness, these individuals succeed not due to being brighter, but because they outwork others.

The second route is seductively attractive. It offers efficiency, a means to outsmart the system. But in practice, it tends to result in delay, lost opportunity, and lost potential. You convince yourself that planning is action, that holding out for the "right time" is intelligent. But with every second you spend thinking and not doing, you lose one second. Others follow a shortcut, using gimmickry and relying on luck, in the hope of evading the pain of real effort. They almost never succeed.

In sports, hesitation is fatal. A hesitant boxer gets hit. A hesitant runner who overthinks the starting gun loses before the game even begins. The best athletes believe in their training, their instincts, and their discipline. They do not let their minds get in the way of their actions. Imagine a basketball player sinking a game-winning shot. If he thinks too much, taking his time to measure the arc, tighten his grip, consider the fans he will disappoint, and his shot will be a weak one. Making plays for the players as simple as possible reduces on court stress and player overthinking which destroys rhythm and flow of the game.

Scholars, however, need a different kind of effort. Blind repetition won't do it here. There is still a need for diligence, but diligence must be purposeful. Studying for hours without a purpose is as worthless as not studying at all. The secret is intelligent effort thoughtful, goal-directed learning, and not blind memorization. Compare two students who are studying for an exam. One student studies ten hours reading a textbook silently. The other does five hours of testing themselves via active recall, articulating concepts, and reinforcing weak points. The second student, who studied less, will do better since his effort was wisely expended. Thinking is great, but only if combined with doing.

When you hesitate in sports, you lose. When you hesitate in school, you lose time. If you can learn to do where doing is needed and think where thinking is needed, you will master both realms.