Pain. Purpose. Resistance. Hard labor. Elbow Grease. All of these make up the several different layers of one simple 5-letter word: Grind.

Don’t just look at this pic. Think about it. Really think.

They say a hustler is on his grind when he is out there in the world, promoting, working, making deals, selling, etc. So many components make up the daily struggle, and the summary of all these parts is the makeup of grinding. When you grind, you refine what is already existing, you perfect what was previously flawed, and you go through great lengths to advertise the finished product. No matter what your hustle, you have to grind in order to make it truly successful.

Grinding is the necessary evil that we all hate. You work a job with a boss that doesn’t appreciate you? You work sales and deal with clients who are less than polite? You own your own business and work do get customers in your store? You blog online, commenting on other sites, holding contests and promotions, guest posting all over hoping to make enough money to put things on auto-pilot while vacationing in Maui? Welcome to the grind.

But grinding is more than the activity you go through on a daily basis. Notice the 2nd word in this post: Purpose. When you grind, you have your eye on the goal, you know the reason why you go through the things that you do. If you simply want to pay your bills or get through another day, you have a meaningless existence. You add nothing to society, and you simply live to help the efforts of others. One of the slogans of My New Hustle is to:

Be the man, stop working for him.

You have to take control of your destiny and say to the world that you want more for yourself, your family, your community, your nation. You are not going to sit idly by and waste opportunities to make a difference. You’re not going to accept the status quo, and you will have a life that is worth living, a life that can be remembered by more than just your immediate family. All of this forms the purpose of your grind.

I hate grinding. I hate getting up in the morning, facing the world, the weather, the rude people on the road. But I know why I do it, I know why my hustle exists. If I want to reach the pages of BusinessWeek as one of the top bloggers, then giving the best that I can give is what it takes to make it. This is my grind, and I know where I want it to lead me.

Do you know why you grind? Do you know where you want to go?