If you have ever started a project with full confidence and inspiration, only to be left empty of both within a short while, you have experienced what I call a “gumption trap”. These traps halt progress, seize forward momentum, plant seeds of doubt and destruction, and cause more failure than a lack of talent ever did.

When you’ve landed in a gumption trap, sometimes you don’t even know it. But it becomes all too clear when you reflect on the series of gumption traps that have stopped you from achieving your personal best, making your dreams come true, and seeing your projects and aspirations through to the end.

In this blog, I want to identify two different types of gumption traps and talk a bit about how to avoid them and get out of one once you’re in it. Hang on, things are about to get sticky.

What is Gumption?

While many people no longer use the term “gumption”, being Southern, I grew up knowing full well what it was. I’m here to tell you that gumption is making a comeback because so many of us find ourselves lacking it as we try to move forward in life.

Gumption is a sense of inspiration, motivation, and drive. When you are filled with gumption, you find yourself excitedly scribbling notes to outline your ideas, talking to others with gusto about your plans, and seeing—with great clarity—how you are going to achieve your goal.

Gumption is akin to the wind in your sails. As Robert Pirsig calls it in his novel Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, it is the “psychic gasoline” that fuels your endeavors. It’s also that feeling in your heart when you know you have a great vision and all you need to do is keep walking toward it.

Why Gumption is Important

Simply put, gumption is at the heart of all success. If no one ever felt a sense of gumption, nothing great would ever be achieved.

Gumption helps to see us through from start to finish, even when we’ve lost sight of the finish line and are disillusioned about the process. A lack of gumption causes us to lose interest, get tired, become ineffective, and be easily dissuaded by both inner and outer circumstances.

Gumption is important because it is the fire within us that fuels achievement. After all, what good is trying to work on anything without fuel?

Gumption in Action: Real-Life Examples

In his novel, Robert Pirsig introduces us to two types of gumption traps.

The first is a setback and arises from external circumstances. Let’s say you missed a critical step early on in a project and now you have to undo or redo a bunch of work. So, you just flat-out quit. Gumption trap.

Maybe you have an unforeseen financial obstacle that feels insurmountable. You can’t keep going forward if you don’t have the resources you need, right? Gumption trap.

What if you are working on your final project for the year but the printer just won’t cooperate? You’re about to throw it out the window. Gumption trap.

The second type of gumption trap is referred to by Pirsig as a hangup, and it comes in many forms. These are the inner gumption traps we all face on any given day.

You wake up feeling like you just can’t handle the pressure anymore. You’ve bitten off more than you can chew. It’s just too much, so you have to quit to relieve the pressure. Gumption trap.

What if you are so afraid of doing something wrong that you never do anything at all? You are too paralyzed to even begin. Gumption trap.

Or, you really love something and want to do it, but you just keep getting knocked down, and you don’t know if you can get back up again. You’ve lost your inner willpower to keep trying. Gumption trap.

These setbacks and hangups remind me of the saying, “You only fail if you fail to try again.” When you’ve got gumption, when you refuse to be thwarted by both the inner and outer circumstances shouting at you to quit—now, that’s gumption in action.

How to Cultivate Gumption

Because gumption can be a force seemingly bestowed upon us by the gods, you might think it cannot be cultivated. I beg to differ.

If you find yourself in a gumption trap, you might need to walk away for a minute, take a walk, a short breather, regain your composure, and then go straight back in. Sometimes a few minutes is all you need to find your gumption again. It is not a fixed commodity or a finite resource; it’s whatever you need, at the moment you need it, that inspires you to continue on.

Whenever I start a big project, I like to write down what I want to do and why. That helps me remember where I was and what I wanted to achieve at that point in time. When I find my gumption wavering, I revisit what I wrote as a reminder that I can get back to that place of inspiration and dedication.

Let’s face it: we are ALL human. We can’t always function at 100%, and to expect that of ourselves would just be unreasonable. So we have to understand that gumption can and will come and go. It ebbs and flows, just like all the other forces in the universe. We have to realize that just because it’s ebbing doesn’t mean the journey is over. In many cases, it’s just begun.

The Connection Between Gumption and Success

I like to think that any success in life owes gumption a nod, if not a standing ovation. Gumption, over time, turns into success when we don’t give up. Sure, we may have to alter our path, or we may even have to go backwards a few steps. But, we don’t quit.

That kind of unwavering faith in our ability to achieve something, no matter how challenging, creates a direct link between gumption and success.

Final Thoughts

I hope that by now you can see the ways in which you might be facing—or stuck in—gumption traps in your own life. Whether they are external setbacks or internal hangups, I truly hope that you will find a way to keep going even if you have to walk away for a minute, an hour, more. Coming back and trying again—that’s what will get you to the finish line.

No one ever said life was easy, but if you can find the gumption, it will be easier.

I’ll see you at the top!

Learn more about gumption traps and tips on how to overcome them in my forthcoming book, Turn Your Fear Into Fuel.