Grit is a personality trait that is characterized by perseverance and passion for achieving long-term goals. Grit entails working strenuously to overcome challenges and maintaining effort and interest over time despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress. Grit is particularly important to accomplish an especially complex task when there is a strong temptation to give up.
We live in a world where everyone wants to be overnight achievers or sensations. There are individuals who have become successful overnight, and there are people who have terribly failed after several attempts. Grit is not about overnight achievement. Grit is a success an individual obtains through endurance, perseverance, resilience, passion, hard work, and constant practice. Grit is not associated with cognitive ability it is a trait that leads to success.
Many research studies were done on individuals who persevered despite the odds and obstacles. Some people who are in the top 10 and top 5: what made the top specials?
Syd Hoff made 571 cartoons for the magazine New Yorker; he wrote and illustrated 60 children’s books, drew comic strips, and made cartoons for publication. His accomplishments sound impressive. However, in the initial days, he created 72 cartoons and went from one magazine to another for publication and sale. Rejection and advice to make more cartoons followed him, which made him wonder: isn’t 72 enough? Later, he went to pursue research in psychology, and just before receiving his doctorate, he realized that research psychology was not his calling. He told himself he was a funny guy, so he scheduled a plan to be a cartoonist and a stand-up comedian, which didn’t work out, and he became a full-time cartoonist and tried for two solid years of submitting his work. He used his rejection slip as motivation to try and try again. He was rejected constantly for 2 years, from 1974 to 1977, and the following year he sold 13 cartoonists to the New Yorker. In 1981, he received a letter from the magazine asking if he would become the contract cartoonist. What made Syd Hoff not give up? If I were in his place, I would have given up.
To be grittier, the first step is to analyze your goals and how you set them for yourself despite the obstacles and uncertainties in life. A goal should be set from a low level to a medium level to a higher level. When one goal at any level has become a setback, a dead end, or a failure, a gritty person will be disappointed, even dejected, but that doesn’t last for a long time. When disappointments and heartbreak over a failure persist for a long time, it can stagnate career growth and sometimes lead to giving up. Accepting the failure or disappointment and identifying an alternative new goal, improvising, and adapting can help the person move forward.
Rebounding from failures and disappointments is not easy for many of us. But it is essential for us, or else these failures and disappointments will become a major obstacle for us to pursue our long-term goal or even give up.
How can you become gritty?
Discover your interest
People who are content with their job are the ones who are doing something in which they are interested. Take your time to discover what you like to do. There are psychometric tools and career counseling that can help you discover.
Clarity in setting your goals
The Warren Buffet’s three steps to setting your goals:
- Write down a list of 25 career goals.
- Priorities: the top 5
- The remaining goals are evaluated to see if they support the five major goals, and if not, they are deleted.
Constant Practice
Gritty people are earnest and committed to carrying out their responsibility of doing things in order to enhance their skills, talents, and efforts. A clearly defined stretch goal, full concentration and effort, immediate and informative feedback, and repetition with reflection and refinement
Purpose
To understand the intention of your choices and goals. Purpose helps you connect and see the bigger picture, so know the purpose of your goal.
Be hopeful
Hope is belief that tomorrow will be better than today. Hope has nothing to do with luck, or everything will become fine. The hope that a gritty person has is to improvise and carry out their efforts. Being hopeful helps the individual overcome and move on from failures, disappointments, and setbacks. Hope can help the individual frame and replace the goals.
When it comes to success, there are different factors that contribute, for example, the cognitive abilities. Girt is a character and perseverance that set the success for an individual. If you fall seven times, rising the eight times shows the passion and perseverance.
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