CREDIT: Photo by richelleantipolo via Flickr (CC)

Part of my fitness routine these days is swimming with a Master’s team three mornings a week. At the beginning of the year, I made a simple sounding resolution — stick with the workout from start to finish. But it’s really not that simple.
Swimming, like many things in life, is more mental than physical. Once you are in relatively decent shape, it’s not that hard to swim 3,000 – 3,500 yards each workout. But mentally it is very hard to push through each set and not quit before the last lap. I have a bad habit of not finishing the final 20 laps and slipping out of the pool early.
After nearly four decades of competitive swimming and training, I call it The Grind. A quality workout is important, but there is no substitute for quantity. The Grind is about putting in the time and effort when it would be easy to slack off.
What applies to swimming is equally true for work. We are already seeing that 2010 is the year of The Grind. It requires long hours from virtually every level of an organization to get things done. The economy is improving, but it has not negated the need for perservance and hard work. In fact I believe in this environment those qualities are equally as important as being smart, creative and strategic in our business.
In January, I watched several members of the RLF team grind it out as they prepared for the opening of the International Civil Rights Center & Museum. You know your staff is working hard when the security guard tells you that people are working too late.
The opening was a big success, and looking back, we cannot point to what particularly late night or extra effort made the difference. The work and commitment built upon itself, day after day, minute task after minute task. It would have been easy to leave things undone in the belief that small details were not important. But in the end, we know that they are. So we stick it out. We grind it out. And our clients and agency are better off for it.