Building Grit: How To Fight Life Challenges in Our World
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Grit has been one of my biggest strengths and flaws altogether. I used to have long streaks of routines and consistency. But then, I would abandon everything and return to my old bad habits.
Then, I would realize I was unhappy with my current situation, and the cycle would start again. But luckily, a few months ago, I learned something: grit could bring you ahead of the competition.
Focus on your determination to build a side hustle, a healthy routine, or a career. The chances to succeed are pretty slim if you don't.
What is Grit?
Grit is fundamental. Yes, sure. But what exactly do I mean by Grit?
Thomas Edison once said:
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
So if you have talent and good ideas, you are only 1% ahead of the others. The other 99% is pure commitment, repetition, and other things I will discuss later.
Perseverance is your ability to keep going even when you fail horribly. It is your grit to show up every day and your need to demonstrate you can do everything you want. And you will do anything to reach that goal.
Pretty powerful, don’t you think so?
Those people are unstoppable.
Grit vs. Failures
Grit, perseverance, fortitude – they have always been the factors that changed everything. People who learned to use this inner power changed the world and succeeded.
At one point, if you always stand up after setbacks, you become inevitable. So, your grit is fundamental if you want to reach your goals.
Failures are part of the game. And you can learn many things from them. But only if you don’t give up.
Sometimes, you will succeed on the first try. But, most times, you must fail a lot to find the formula for success. So, if you give up, you lose. And there is nothing in between.
How To Build Grit To Fight the Challenges of Life
Some people learn to be perseverant from a young age. Lucky them! They will always have an advantage. But that doesn’t mean you will never become perseverant. You can build grit if you want.
Angela Duckworth is a psychologist who has studied it all her life. In her book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, she explains what makes people grittier than others and how you can increase your perseverance. With that in mind, I will try a shorter approach here.
So, how can you become grittier? Here are the ingredients of my Grit Recipe.
1 – Take a handful of passion.
Sometimes, I miss the will to move toward my passion. I don’t even want to think about a world without it.
My passions drive my actions every day. I write because I love writing. I am building a side hustle because I love the feeling of daily achievements. And I make web pages because I love the aesthetics behind it.
Without my passions, I wouldn’t have done any of that. So passion drives my actions, and it is the same for you. But beware of temporary flings for activities that catch your attention.
You have to dive deep into your soul to find your roots and what gives you joy. And when you’ll find it, you'll know.
2 – Add an overflowing dose of commitment.
Finding your passion might be challenging, but nothing compares to committing to it.
It takes a lot of mental strength to commit to an activity and keep doing it even if it fails.
Many doubts will spawn in your head, and you will have to ignore them. But some of them will get to your soul, and they will try to convince you that you are worth nothing. At that moment, most people leave. But not the resilient ones.
I have struggled to commit in the past years since I started writing online. But I found a technique in Duckworth’s words that helped me a lot:
Set a goal you wish to achieve with all your heart.
Set a time frame in which you will do everything to reach that goal.
You can quit, but not before the time frame ends.
Use these three rules to commit to your passion.
3 – Mix everything with a growth mindset.
Growth is the third ingredient of the grit recipe, and it is also the most fundamental because it keeps everything together. It is the water of our cake.
You will never learn from your failures without a growth mindset. You will try your hardest, fail, focus on your mistakes, and never learn anything. Then, you will repeat the same errors without any improvements. And you will fail again until you lose patience and quit.
Focus on the lessons you can extract from each experience instead. Every time you finish a complex task, write one thing you learned. It doesn’t matter if it was a failure or a success. It has to leave you with something. Otherwise, it’s useless.
Follow these two rules:
If you succeed, write a lesson you should repeat.
But if you failed, list everything you should avoid and how you could have done better.
As you see, failure brings many more lessons than success. And a growth mindset knows it.
4 – And then garnish with clear goals.
Goals, goals, goals – why is everyone so obsessed about them?
Maybe because they work?
Nowadays, everything is a goal. If you want to achieve something in life, you need a purpose. Otherwise, how could you track it? And if you can’t, how can you know if you achieved something? And how do you know when to stop?
We need goals to put an end to our hunger for more. It is the barrier that keeps us from insanity. Otherwise, we would want to get everything - undoable.
So, build clear goals. Be precise about what you want and when you want it. Make a plan to achieve it, and stick to it. If you followed the recipe until now, this will be only the icing on the cake.
Make S.MA.R.T. goal.
Stick to them.
Repeat until your belly is full.
The Challenge of the Week
Prepare your grit recipe for the first time. Follow these four simple steps:
1 - Take a handful of passion.
2 - Add an overflowing dose of resilience.
3 - Mix everything with a growth mindset.
4 - And garnish with clear goals.
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Stay consistent and stay strong.
Cosmin.
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