Are you Stubborn or Determined?
Jan 30, 2025
Stubbornness is the counterfeit of determination. Where determination pursues the growth on the other side of obstacles, stubbornness stays hacking away at obstacles, even when they aren’t leading anywhere. Stubbornness is a particularly damaging problem in business. It may be costing you valuable resources.
Before we dive deeper into the ins an outs of determination and stubbornness, here’s a refresher on how authentic and counterfeit emotions are categorized.
How to Identify the Authentic from the Counterfeit
All authentic and counterfeit emotions can be identified using these four criteria: connection, direction, motivation, and valuation.
Connection
Does this emotion connect or divide?
Direction
Where does this emotion lead?
Motivation
What is the driving force behind this emotion?
Valuation
How does this emotion affect the way we perceive the value of ourselves and other people?
Let’s apply these to determination and stubbornness.
Determination
Connection
Does this emotion connect or divide?
Determination connects us to a purpose, and to ourselves. When we are determined, we believe deeply in the cause we are pursuing, and it empowers us by urging us to believe in our own capability as well.
Direction
Where does this emotion lead?
Determination pushes us toward progress. It keeps us trudging forward to our goals even when the road gets bumpy, centering our focus on the hopeful future ahead.
Motivation
What is the driving force behind this emotion?
Determination is motivated by a desire to grow. It isn’t there just to beat the challenge. When we feel determined, it is because there’s something we want on the other side of the challenge.
Valuation
How does this emotion affect the way we perceive the value of ourselves and other people?
Determination values the things that are important to us. It encourages us to chase after our convictions and turn them into a purpose. Determination validates our convictions.
Stubbornness
Connection
Does this emotion connect or divide?
Stubbornness creates a rift between you and your purpose and even between you and your true feelings. It pressures us to keep it up despite our dwindling belief in its cause. It causes us to act against our true feelings, which breeds resentment and dissatisfaction.
Direction
Where does this emotion lead?
This criterion is tricky because stubbornness moves forward in a way, but the key here is that stubbornness keeps us on a road that isn’t authentic to us anymore. It is using energy to move toward a place that we don’t want to be. That is not progress.
Motivation
What is the driving force behind this emotion?
Stubbornness is driven by the fear of failure and a need to control the outcome. It is afraid to be perceived as lazy, weak, and incompetent, and it doesn’t want to accept that how our ideas play out in reality is something we can control (we have the power to respond to the outcome appropriately, but we cannot control it). Stubbornness isn’t fueled by a greater purpose like determination, it is merely a fear of stopping that keeps it going.
Valuation
How does this emotion affect the way we perceive the value of ourselves and other people?
Stubbornness connects our value to our performance. It leads us to mistakenly believe that if we abandon our pursuit, we must be a quitter.
What Stubbornness Looks Like in the Business World
Innovation and growth (two things that are essential to a healthy business) come by way of trial and error. Not every big idea is going to pan out. Some of them we learn what we can from and then toss aside for another idea.
Stubbornness wastes resources and time on pursuits that are no longer helping businesses grow. Do not fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy!
The sunk cost fallacy is when we feel an obligation to continue putting resources, time, and effort into something that clearly isn’t worth it. The sunk cost fallacy is when we feel like the project we are pursuing is no longer going in the direction we wanted but we still continue with it so as not to “waste” the time we already spent on it.
It’s a fallacy because continuing on with a project that isn’t worth our time isn’t going to make the time already spent less of a waste. We are only going to waste more resources. It is okay to let go of the things that aren’t working. That’s how we find the ideas that do work; we keep trying ideas and then discarding them until we find the one that gets us where we want to go.
A great way to assess if you are being determined or stubborn is to ask yourself this question: “Would I start this project/company/service today?” If the answer is yes, that is a good indication that you still believe in the purpose behind your pursuit and you still see it as a worthy investment. If your answer is no, you may want to consider letting this project go.
You may have answered no, but are not willing to give up on your work just yet. If that’s the case, try reminding yourself what you are doing this for. Reminding yourself of the purpose might just renew that determination.
If you are ready to clean out the stubbornness that is keeping your business stuck, contact Curtis for a consultation.
