After casing the joint, Goldie pops the lock and stealthily walks inside. She helps herself to a steaming hot bowl of porridge, burns her tongue, immediately curses in frustration and heads out the door with a first-degree burn and a second-degree felony.
Aside from the obvious don't break and enter message, there is another clear moral to this altered Goldilocks’ story. This remixed narrative is not exactly a tale of perseverance. One setback and she’s out? That’s not grit—that’s quitting. If you’re going to commit a crime, at least have the persistence to finish what you started.
I would suggest that the reason this children's tale has stood the test of time, despite its questionable messaging, is that it highlights the importance of stick-to-itiveness, highlighting the concept of continuing to try when at first you don't succeed. She is not satisfied with a meal that is too hot or too cold, a chair too firm or too soft, or a bed too big or too lumpy. In order to land at “just right” she had to persist through multiple failures.
Most often, failure is not what ruins performance, quitting is. Too often, athletes, executives, and other performers experience discomfort, and see it as a sign to admit or acknowledge defeat.. The burn, the hard chair, the lumpy bed should not be signs to leave, they are signs to keep going. Failure is a necessary and imperative part of the process. It is how we learn. If we give up too quickly, we leave on the table far too many opportunities to grow and improve.
The reason we glorify this fable is because she kept going. She tried another bowl. Then another. Then the chairs. Then the beds. She stuck with it and that’s what made the story interesting and what leads to the true moral.
The road to success is paved with failures, frustrations, and disappointments. So, the next time you fail at something, you have a choice: Do you grow or do you give up?