I haven’t seen this idea anywhere else, possibly because the demographics which think about such things are natural hardos, but actually there is a game-theoretic reason behind these attitudes, which typically start to manifest in school classrooms. When you are competing internally rather than globally, within a small environment such that your attitudes can affect the entire group, conspicuous non-effort is both an attempt to form a collective agreement to reduce the level of competition, and a type of stotting if you can perform well despite “not trying”. Another way that the formal education system maladapts you for real life.
Conspicuous non-effort as a status signal of one's own competence was common in my experience throughout high-competition high school and college contexts. I hadn't ever thought of it as a strategy to attempt to collectively *reduce* competition, though. This point resonates.
I'd be interested to hear what you mean about this strategy being maladaptive for "real life." It seems that signaling your competence through conspicuous non-effort ("I'm so smart that I don't have to try hard to do well") would continue to work outside of the school context.
So the scenario when this strategy works is when you are competing internally rather than globally, within a small environment such that your attitudes can affect the entire group. In the "real world", there are cases where this is true, like in local clubs or noncompetitive jobs. But more often, you are competing globally, against people who are both talented and hardworking. Or you are not competing against people but rather fighting the world itself in trying to discover or create something.
Knowing what I know now, if I were given the choice at birth between getting talent or determination, I’d choose determination every time.
I am such a try-hard. It’s the only thing that ever worked for me. You might like Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. He says he’d never have become a great novelist if running had’t taught him that he can accomplish great goals in life with mediocre talent.
I'll check that out from the library. I've read "Kafka on the Shore" and it was frankly a bit too avant-garde for me, but even that book made it clear he's an incredible writer. Perhaps something more grounded in reality will be a better read for me.
I used to think like you do (I self-identified as a try-hard until I was 21), but I want to push back by suggesting that there is a difference between trying hard and being effective.
The most clear example I think comes from sport and training. I used to be that kid that would go balls to the wall at every swim practice, try and get KOMs on every strava segment, crush easy runs because I wanted to work hard. I improved certainly, but the kids who actually modulated their effort quickly became much better than me. Trying hard all the time simply isn't effective at improving at any athletic activity: we know any 80:20 split is far better long-term.
I would posit that the same is true with intellectual work. You can't just push through things you don't like forever. You will burn-out. That's not to say that you won't get stuff done, but to be honest, trying to work with people who are used to muscling through things is just not very pleasant.
I honestly think grit and determination are heavily overrated. Real success comes from patience and discipline in repeatedly executing limited goals that are within your capabilities. If you are relying on grit that means you've probably overreached in some way, which can be fine (or even necessary) in the short term, but disastrous in the long-term. Maybe you could say that patience and discipline are what you are describing with the words grit and determination, but that doesn't really jibe with the description of a try-hard.
Hey Joshua, thanks for sharing that post. There is a lot of good commentary in there about what makes training effective. “Wasted effort” is very real, and literally trying harder is not always going to create the optimal outcome (I’ve written plenty about my struggles with overtraining, insufficient recovery, and injury). I think when I was writing about effort in this post, I meant a more holistic view of effort than just grit. dedication/patience/discipline are all things I wrap up in “effort.”
In my experience, in fact, discipline is above all else the thing that’s being demeaned by people hating on tryhards.
I’ve had this thought before too and generally agree. Even if I don’t put exceptional effort in every one of my pursuits, I “sit in the front row of the class and ask questions during the lecture”, figuratively and literally.
Related idea: sometimes people glamorize unhealthy habits, like not getting enough sleep, maybe because of a similar cognitive dissonance? But getting enough sleep, eating salads, and going to the gym is Good, Actually.
That being said, there are many zero-sum games in life, and I think the social pressure to not try so hard at these competitions is a good coordination mechanism to prevent ourselves from giving up too much for them.
I haven’t seen this idea anywhere else, possibly because the demographics which think about such things are natural hardos, but actually there is a game-theoretic reason behind these attitudes, which typically start to manifest in school classrooms. When you are competing internally rather than globally, within a small environment such that your attitudes can affect the entire group, conspicuous non-effort is both an attempt to form a collective agreement to reduce the level of competition, and a type of stotting if you can perform well despite “not trying”. Another way that the formal education system maladapts you for real life.
Conspicuous non-effort as a status signal of one's own competence was common in my experience throughout high-competition high school and college contexts. I hadn't ever thought of it as a strategy to attempt to collectively *reduce* competition, though. This point resonates.
I'd be interested to hear what you mean about this strategy being maladaptive for "real life." It seems that signaling your competence through conspicuous non-effort ("I'm so smart that I don't have to try hard to do well") would continue to work outside of the school context.
So the scenario when this strategy works is when you are competing internally rather than globally, within a small environment such that your attitudes can affect the entire group. In the "real world", there are cases where this is true, like in local clubs or noncompetitive jobs. But more often, you are competing globally, against people who are both talented and hardworking. Or you are not competing against people but rather fighting the world itself in trying to discover or create something.
Knowing what I know now, if I were given the choice at birth between getting talent or determination, I’d choose determination every time.
I am such a try-hard. It’s the only thing that ever worked for me. You might like Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. He says he’d never have become a great novelist if running had’t taught him that he can accomplish great goals in life with mediocre talent.
I'll check that out from the library. I've read "Kafka on the Shore" and it was frankly a bit too avant-garde for me, but even that book made it clear he's an incredible writer. Perhaps something more grounded in reality will be a better read for me.
I used to think like you do (I self-identified as a try-hard until I was 21), but I want to push back by suggesting that there is a difference between trying hard and being effective.
The most clear example I think comes from sport and training. I used to be that kid that would go balls to the wall at every swim practice, try and get KOMs on every strava segment, crush easy runs because I wanted to work hard. I improved certainly, but the kids who actually modulated their effort quickly became much better than me. Trying hard all the time simply isn't effective at improving at any athletic activity: we know any 80:20 split is far better long-term.
I would posit that the same is true with intellectual work. You can't just push through things you don't like forever. You will burn-out. That's not to say that you won't get stuff done, but to be honest, trying to work with people who are used to muscling through things is just not very pleasant.
I honestly think grit and determination are heavily overrated. Real success comes from patience and discipline in repeatedly executing limited goals that are within your capabilities. If you are relying on grit that means you've probably overreached in some way, which can be fine (or even necessary) in the short term, but disastrous in the long-term. Maybe you could say that patience and discipline are what you are describing with the words grit and determination, but that doesn't really jibe with the description of a try-hard.
Relevant blog post (by me): https://deusexvita.substack.com/p/confidence-comes-from-competence
Hey Joshua, thanks for sharing that post. There is a lot of good commentary in there about what makes training effective. “Wasted effort” is very real, and literally trying harder is not always going to create the optimal outcome (I’ve written plenty about my struggles with overtraining, insufficient recovery, and injury). I think when I was writing about effort in this post, I meant a more holistic view of effort than just grit. dedication/patience/discipline are all things I wrap up in “effort.”
In my experience, in fact, discipline is above all else the thing that’s being demeaned by people hating on tryhards.
I think we are in complete agreement in that case!
I’ve had this thought before too and generally agree. Even if I don’t put exceptional effort in every one of my pursuits, I “sit in the front row of the class and ask questions during the lecture”, figuratively and literally.
Related idea: sometimes people glamorize unhealthy habits, like not getting enough sleep, maybe because of a similar cognitive dissonance? But getting enough sleep, eating salads, and going to the gym is Good, Actually.
That being said, there are many zero-sum games in life, and I think the social pressure to not try so hard at these competitions is a good coordination mechanism to prevent ourselves from giving up too much for them.