I just read Angela Duckworth’s excellent book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. The book makes a very compelling, evidence-based case that grit- the combination of passion and perseverance – is a more likely determinant of your success than talent. And Angela Duckworth makes it clear that, while she is talking about your career, she’s also talking about any other challenging endeavor in life – school, athletics, raising kids, even learning how to write.
As I read the book, I kept thing about how to apply its concepts to real life. I may not ever write a book that sells over a million copies, as Angela Duckworth did, but I like to think I’m pretty good at applying big concepts to the particular situations that I find myself in.
Here are four keys to make Grit work for you (or me):
Make Decisions that Stretch You
Let’s start with the most obvious point. You won’t develop grit if you are not willing to take risk. If you spend your whole life avoiding risk, you are just not going to develop life resilience and grit. Instead, when something bad happens to you – as it will whether or not you planned for it- you won’t have the life skills to deal with it. It happens to very good people, especially as they get older. Something really tough happens to them and they stop growing and taking more chances. It’s like the clock stopped on their life.
I’ve been working on a project that involves interviewing some people who have accomplished a great deal, and along the way taken some very real and large risks. Just like the rest of us, when they first took whatever leap they took they had no idea if it would work out or not. But unlike the rest of us, they tend to view risk differently. They think much more about the risk of NOT taking any risks than most of us do. Most of us just think about the risk of whatever we are contemplating not working out, rather than the risk of doing nothing.
As Teddy Roosevelt famously said, “the credit belongs to the man in the arena.” It would be a better quote if he wouldn’t have left out half of the human race. Nevertheless, it is worth remembering that you have to put yourself out there – in the arena – to develop perseverance.
I want to be clear that I am not recommending always taking whatever risk presents itself to you. There are plenty of times in life when the best thing to do is to double-down on what you are currently doing. What I am saying is that in all of our lives there are “moments of truth” when we can either play it safe or do something that we know will stretch us. I believe we all know when we reach one of these moments, as long as we cultivate the ability to step back from our own life situations and assess them a bit. When you know you are a little-bit-scared, or more than a little scared, but you are still deeply energized by a challenge, that’s when it’s time to stretch yourself.
Discover Your Passion One Step at a Time
Some people always know what they want to do, what they are passionate about, and they never look back. I have a great friend who is an excellent cardiologist and he knew he wanted to be a doctor his whole life. Which is wonderful.
I am nothing like this.
Which is why when I read advice like “do what you are passionate about,” my first thought is always, “well … um … how do I figure that out?”
My experience is that most people are more like me than they are like my friend the cardiologist. Life doesn’t hand them their calling; instead, they need to spend a good chunk of their lifetime trying to discover it.
Thankfully, in the book Grit Angela Duckworth recognized this challenge for most people and she writes about it. It turns out that, for many people, they need to discover their passion one step at a time. Some of this is about using your life experiences to learn when you are in that “flow state” of being highly engaged (and losing track of time.) Whenever you experience such a flow state, you need to figure out how to do more of that experience. Some of this is about being willing to stretch yourself, so that you have a shot at new experiences. And some of this is always about re-framing where you are at in a way that is more constructive. It may be as simple as volunteering to add something to your job.
If you are looking for the thing that will keep you energized and engaged 100% of the time, you are probably framing the problem of discovering your passion incorrectly. Even the most passionate people have parts to their days that involve drudgery and mundane stuff. Instead, find the parts of your day or parts of your job that you love the most, and work on spending more of your time doing those things.
Redefine Obstacles
In my own research of high performing people, many of them successful entrepreneurs, I’ve noticed a fascinating dynamic – high performing people view obstacles in a very interesting way. First of all, they love to talk about them, and especially tell stories about how they found a way to get around big obstacles. They are energized by obstacles to the point where they even relish them. I’ve listened to story and after story where the thing that really catapulted someone to success was some really hard, difficult obstacle that “woke them up.” Even when they got clobbered by an obstacle (which often involved losing a lot of money), high performing people are quick to learn from what they did wrong and work on picking themselves back up.
There is often a great deal of humor in these stories of obstacles-not-overcome. I once worked with a British guy who was a great storyteller. He told a story about working for a British tech company that was failing, a meeting that he had with Margaret Thatcher (of all people) where they asked for a government bailout (of all things,) and how quickly they were shown the door (with no bailout in hand.) Probably the most notable part of the story, was how rapidly he moved onto his next challenge.
Obstacles are part of the flow of life. They arise in all of our lives in all shapes and forms and configurations, sometimes in the most curious of ways. Some of them we could have anticipated, but many of them seemingly appear out of left field.
We can’t really all expect ourselves to relish all the obstacles of life, even if some really unusual people seem like they do. But, if we can shift our view of obstacles even a little, if we can get more comfortable over time that we will find a way through (even if we don’t solve every problem,) our grit will grow.
Manage Your Energy and Learn How to Renew It
We all live in a world that is increasingly wired 24/7. Which is challenging since none of us were really genetically wired to be “on” 24/7.
Most of us are overcommitted and don’t have enough time to attend to all of life’s demands. When we are chronically overcommitted, something is going to give whether or not we like it.
So, we tend to think a lot about productivity and how to best manage our time.
Here is another, different way to think about that. We will never have enough time to do everything that someone else wants us to do. In fact, the better we are at what we do, the more someone will demand that we do more of it.
There is another option – focus on being really rigorous about what makes it on our own to-do list in the first place (and make it our choice, not someone else’s.) And learn what renews our energy and zest for life – because we cannot manufacture more time (that would violate the laws of physics,) but we can learn how to re-energize ourselves.
The energy equation will be different to each of us, and our energy deficit could be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual (or a combination of the four).
One thing for sure. We cannot tackle big challenges unless we have the energy to do so. Which means, we cannot develop more Grit until we learn how to renew and manage our own energy equation.
I have no doubt that Grit is a better predictor of life success/ fulfillment than talent. The good news for each of us is that we aren’t really “born” with a predefined amount of Grit. We can grow Grit. By being willing to take risks, by discovering our passions one step at a time, by redefining how we think about obstacles, and by learning how to re-energize ourselves, we can grow the Grit we need to have a better life.
Leave a Reply