There is a particular kind of uncertainty that comes after doing everything you thought you were supposed to do.

You worked hard. You pursued the goal. Maybe you earned the title, built the company, made the money, or reached the milestone that once seemed so important.

Then you got there, and something still felt incomplete.

That tension sits at the center of my recent conversation with Suneet Bhatt, an entrepreneur, educator, executive, and author of the forthcoming Making Sense of Purpose. Over more than 25 years, Suneet has worked across startups, Fortune 500 companies, and nonprofits. Today, he teaches at Rutgers University and works with individuals and organizations around purpose, clarity, and forward movement.

His work raises a simple but uncomfortable question:

What happens when achievement is no longer enough?

We talk often here at Gritletter about perseverance, which I define as a continuous course of action in spite of difficulty. But perseverance alone does not tell us where to go. Sometimes continuing is courageous. Sometimes changing direction is wiser. And sometimes the hardest thing to admit is that the destination we have been pursuing was never really ours.

So I asked Suneet about success, purpose, uncertainty, and what it actually means to keep going.

Gritletter: Many people spend years pursuing a goal only to reach it and discover that achievement does not feel the way they expected. Why does success sometimes fail to produce fulfillment, and what should someone pay attention to when that happens?

Suneet: The goals that fulfill us are the ones tied to what makes us and what matters to us. We often define success from the outside instead, by what looks like it.

I did that for a long time. Teams of three, then teams of a thousand. Fundraises, acquisitions, exits. By every external measure it was working. And a lot of it still felt empty.

So we reach the goal, we reckon with it, and we realize it wasn't what we wanted in the first place. What I'd pay attention to is what happens next. Most of us don't stop to reflect. We set a new goal. Bigger, or just different. And we make that choice in the exact moment we're feeling the miss, the dissatisfaction. We make it from a place of scarcity, not clarity.

The move is to step out of that scarcity long enough to ask whether the goal was ever ours to begin with. That question is the whole thing, and it's the one we skip.

Gritletter: That is an important place to begin. Our instinct after disappointment is often to accelerate. Suneet suggests doing something harder first: stop long enough to determine whether the destination still deserves the effort.

Which raises another question.

Gritletter: Gritletter defines perseverance as “a continuous course of action in spite of difficulty.” But perseverance can sometimes become stubbornness. How do you know when grit means continuing, when it means adapting, and when it means having the courage to let something go?

Suneet: Gritletter defines perseverance as a continuous course of action in spite of difficulty. I'd add one word. Intention.

When motivation drops, we tend toward one of two moves. We stop, and we arrive at regret. Or we grit our teeth and push, and we arrive at burnout.

Grit is worth something when we can see why we're continuing.

That's where self-awareness does the work. Sometimes it says keep going. Sometimes it says adapt the form but hold the throughline. Sometimes it says what mattered before doesn't matter in the same way now, and letting go is the honest move.

Purpose evolves because we evolve. Continuing on purpose and continuing out of habit look identical from the outside. The difference is whether we chose it.

I don't mind working hard. Extraordinary hours, in some cases. What matters more is how aligned we are about it, how intentional we are, and whether we sustain ourselves on our progress and our wins instead of our fears. Fear is a powerful motivator. It's also an unsustainable one. That's what tips grit into burnout.

Gritletter: One word changes the definition considerably: intention.

Perseverance becomes more than endurance when we understand why we are continuing. Without that clarity, persistence can become habit, fear, or burnout disguised as commitment.

Gritletter: Many high achievers are conditioned to respond to uncertainty by working harder, achieving more, or starting something new. What have you learned about the difference between meaningful forward motion and activity that is really an attempt to outrun fear, disappointment, or a lack of clarity?

Suneet: It isn't the pace that wears us down. It's the disconnection.

We chase goals, keep routines, keep moving. When the motion is connected to what matters to us, it builds something. When it isn't, it just burns fuel.

For builders this one is sharp, because starting the next thing can be the work we hide behind. It looks like progress. Sometimes it's motion away from a fear we haven't named.

A lot of that frantic motion comes from trying to control what we can't. Getting clear and honest about what is ours to control, and what isn't, is where the fear starts to lose its grip. We put our effort where we actually have a say, and we stop spending ourselves on the rest.

That's why I care so much about progress over pace. Progress isn't the thing that happens on the way to success. It's the thing. And it doesn't have to be big. I spend a lot of my teaching on footholds. How do we get started, how do we hold momentum through a setback, how do we move without burning out.

The real test is whether the movement is connected to something that matters.

There's a bigger version of all this that I'm making the case for in a second book right now, Making the Case for Purpose. There's a working draft if anyone wants it. For a long time we could hide behind the mechanical, repeatable work, the work that asked nothing human of us. That is exactly the work AI takes first. As it falls away, something is already waiting to fill the space it leaves. Distraction has never been more available, more engineered, or more within reach. And what remains is where purpose is built. The more the machine takes the mechanical, the more purpose becomes the work that is ours.

Gritletter: For builders especially, that distinction can be uncomfortable.

Creating another project, chasing another opportunity, or setting another goal can look like determination. Sometimes it is. Other times, activity gives us somewhere to hide from questions we would rather not answer.

Motion is easy to measure. Meaningful progress requires something harder: knowing why we are moving at all.

Gritletter: Faith, purpose, and uncertainty often exist together. How do you continue doing meaningful work when you cannot see the outcome, especially when there is little external evidence that your effort is leading anywhere?

Suneet: There is no 100 percent certainty. There never is.

So one of the most important distinctions in my work is this. The opposite of uncertainty isn't certainty. It's clarity.

We tend to think we need certainty before we can move. We don't. We need enough clarity to take the next step.

Your readers already know how to keep building when they can't see the outcome. What I'd offer is where the steadiness comes from. It's clarity about who we are, what matters, and why this next step is worth taking.

In practice, this is a lot of the work I do with groups of executives. We reflect on progress, so we feel some momentum. We treat the stuck feeling as a plateau, not a dead end. None of it asks us to see the whole outcome.

Purpose isn't something we chase. It's something we get at through self-reflection, awareness, and experimentation. It's a never-ending journey because it has to meet us where we are. Meaningful work doesn't require knowing exactly where it leads. It requires enough clarity to take the step in front of us.

Gritletter: That may be the most important distinction in this conversation:

The opposite of uncertainty is not certainty. It is clarity.

We waste a lot of time waiting for certainty before we act. But certainty may never come. Clarity can show us the next meaningful step. 

Gritletter: If someone reading Gritletter feels stuck right now despite doing many of the “right” things, what is one question you would encourage them to ask themselves, and what is one concrete action they can take this week to begin moving with greater purpose?

Suneet: If we feel stuck, the first move is to look inward before we push harder or reach for a quick win.

Start by acknowledging it. We're stuck. There's no need to question it or judge it. The better question is what kind of stuck this is. I reframe stuck as a plateau, and no two plateaus are the same. Some are strategic. Some are for recovery. Some are for reflection. Some are protecting us through something hard. Naming which one we're on shows us what the moment is actually asking of us.

Then the most powerful thing we can do, wholly within our control, is self-forgiveness. We carry so much guilt about being stuck. Setting it down empties the backpack and makes space for clarity, confidence, and forward movement.

That's the work for this week. Name the plateau. Then finish one sentence, honestly. One small way I can begin to forgive myself is.

Once we've set that down, we move. And the move is small. I follow James Clear and Britt Frank here. Optimize for the starting line, not the finish line. Find the smallest thing we can say yes to that feels like progress. That's the foothold, and it holds because we did the inner work first.

Gritletter: That reframing is useful because a plateau is not necessarily evidence that something has gone wrong.

Some seasons call for acceleration. Others call for recovery, reflection, or recalibration. The challenge is recognizing which season we are actually in before judging ourselves for not moving faster.

I started this conversation thinking grit meant continuing when the outcome is uncertain. I came away with a more precise definition.

Continuing is not always courageous. Changing direction is not quitting. Working harder does not always mean moving forward, and reaching a goal does not mean it was worth pursuing.

What matters is whether our effort remains connected to something that genuinely matters to us.

Maybe grit is more than a continuous course of action in spite of difficulty.

It is perseverance with intention. Knowing why we continue, even when continuing is difficult.

We cannot always know how an opportunity, career move, business, or idea will turn out.

We do not need certainty. We need enough clarity to recognize the next meaningful step and the courage to take it.

Suneet Bhatt explores these ideas further in his new book, Making Sense of Purpose: Gain Clarity, Build Momentum, and Find Your “Kiran,” available August 25.

Through a special launch offer, Gritletter readers can receive 10% off the book plus free U.S. shipping through Beantown Books.

If someone in your life is navigating a plateau, career transition, difficult season, or uncertain next chapter, forward this edition to them.

Sometimes clarity begins with the right question.

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