I was reading Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Substack and he made this point as well .” Too often it (stubbornness) is associated with courage, integrity, determination, or other good qualities.” Out of curiosity, I Googled “Is being stubborn a bad thing?”, and I got quite a few articles about why it isn't such a bad thing. The problem with all these articles is that they are not talking about stubbornness as a quality but instances when it might work for someone.
In reality they are two completely different things. An athlete can be tenacious while listing to their coach. While a stubborn person is only going to follow the advice they agree with. Just because people use the wrong term doesn't mean it has merit. There are a lot of stubborn people who still refuse to except the election results.
I think we should separate stubbornness from tenacity. Stubbornness is the term we use when someone keep doing something in a wrong direction and tenacity when the try again until success.
But there’s maybe a survivorship biais here. The successful ones are called tenacious and the failing ones stubborn.
In reality they are two completely different things. An athlete can be tenacious while listing to their coach. While a stubborn person is only going to follow the advice they agree with. Just because people use the wrong term doesn't mean it has merit. There are a lot of stubborn people who still refuse to except the election results.
I think we should separate stubbornness from tenacity. Stubbornness is the term we use when someone keep doing something in a wrong direction and tenacity when the try again until success.
But there’s maybe a survivorship biais here. The successful ones are called tenacious and the failing ones stubborn.