On October 19, 2026, I squatted with a barbell weight of 202.25 lbs. It was the heaviest I did for a Squat. It was a milestone. And I did it thanks to tenacity.
The synonym for tenacity is perseverance. But I don’t fully agree. They’re not one and the same. While perseverance is about keeping on working to get what one wants, tenacity stresses sticking to what you’re doing no matter what. Tenacity, thus, is the stronger word.
Tenacity is a trait I find much more applicable than resilience, a popular buzzword which executives had repeatedly uttered as they navigated through economically challenging times.
Resilience implies endurance, which points to a defensive frame of mind to adverse circumstances. Resilience encourages one to roll with the punches and bounce back.
Tenacity goes further. It encourages a proactive attitude with laser-like focus. It spurs one to adopt a defensive and offensive stance. It’s about not giving up to whatever is opposing you and aggressively getting back on track with the aim of winning and nothing less.
Resilience accommodates compliance. Tenacity does not. It does not give room to the mindset of following someone else’s rules. Tenacity tells one to either challenge the mainstream or at least, get around it.
Tenacity could be a pitfall such as when one blindly acts towards attaining a desired object. Think the cyborg in the Terminator movie. [spoiler alert] The killer robot, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, pursues its quarry with unending tenacity. Despite being shot and burned, it doesn’t give up, until when close to finally reaching its target, it doesn’t realise it falls into a trap and is defeated.
The Terminator was programmed to be tenacious via obsessiveness to meet its goal. Obsession, however, is not a prerequisite to tenacity. One does not need to be recklessly committed to be tenacious.
Which leads me to the milestone.
A milestone, literally, is a marker such as what one sees on a highway and which tells us how far one is from a destination or point of origin.
In strategic planning, milestones are points an organisation aim to reach such that its leaders would know they are on the right track towards their goals.
I pursued the weightlifting 202.25 lb Squat as an objective. Positively, it gave me the tenacity to work out three (3) times a week, rain or shine (I exercised outdoors). And I did it. I achieved it.
Negatively, I mistook the 202.25 Squat as an objective. It wasn’t. It was a milestone. It wasn’t the goal.
Pursuing Squat 202.25lbs as the goal misled me to what should be my objective, which was to strengthen my muscles to successfully lift heavy weights via a variety of exercises (e.g., Deadlifts, Overhead Presses, Bench Presses, Barbell Rows). The real milestones were the results of every workout I finished from the number of sets I lifted at so much weight.
I’m happy I reached a personal best in Squats but aspiring to squat at 202.25 lbs veered me from defining what should be my goal in weightlifting. I missed the big picture which was to become healthier and stronger. Tenacity did help me reach my milestone but as I re-plan my roadmap, I’d need to remind myself that milestones are markers, not goals. And tenacity, with all its relentless drive I get from it, works best when I work towards clear goals.
