Grit

This is a one in three part series this week on Grit.

I recently finished the book "Grit" by Angela Duckworth. The book was really interesting and I wanted to share a few things I learned from the book.

Teaching

Angela Duckworth used to be a teacher, so some of her experiences were taken from her time teaching. One of the stories she told was about struggle. As students, some struggled while others did not. The teacher then doubts themself if they taught it the wrong way or did the child need to struggle a bit more. The struggle could lead to grit. If you have a child that struggles, they may give up more easily or they may increase their grit. Sometimes it is the fault of the teacher though. Some teachers try to teach to the majority of kids, when a child may need more individualized attention to learn a topic. Children have different learning styles, whether it be verbal or auditory or kinetic. 

      The second thing she mentioned about school and students was Gifted and Talented. Being a former Gifted and Talented student in school, this section intrigued me. Duckworth said there were two types of GT kids, generally talented kids and those with grit. I used to think of myself as one of the generally talented kids, but once I hit middle school, I realized I needed to become a gifted and talented kid with grit. The generally talented kids did not struggle and were able to grasp concepts quick, while the other Gifted and Talented kids had to work harder and struggle more. It was harder to be one of those gritty GT kids, but now I am thankful for it, because I worked hard for what I earned. It helped me not to give up as easy when faced with difficult situations and concepts. It made me stronger as an individual. When faced with difficult situations, I now try to not let setbacks hold me back and try to come back better than ever.

What Exactly is Grit?

Grit is more about stamina and less about intensity. If someone is gritty and consistently does what they need to, they will be more gritty than people who are intense about what they do for a shorter amount of time.
Grit also needs deliberate practice. It needs to be broken down and practiced.
Part of Grit is working incredibly hard. Grit is about working on something you care about so much, that you are staying loyal to it, for a long amount of time. There are no shortcuts to excellence, so someone must work hard to get what they want and achieve excellence.

Talent, Purpose and Grit

Talent is important, but it needs to be taken into consideration with other things. Duckworth says if we overemphasize talent, we underemphasize everything else. If we underemphasize everything else, we overlook important things such as experience and grit. We need people who show up with themselves 100%. Woody Allen once said “80% of success in life is showing up.”

Grit and purpose might conflict. Grit and purpose are different just like there is a difference between a job, a career, and a calling. Some of these differences may not be obvious. One obvious difference can be seen in jobs because they are only temporary. Careers are long term, and can include many jobs. We want to have a calling, but we get stuck in a job or career. We need to keep our purpose in mind, but keep being gritty about what we really want to achieve our goals.

Goals

Goals are a hierarchy. Low-level goals are quick to-dos. They are a means to an end.
To get to the higher-level goals, we need to keep asking why.
High-level goals are what we really need to look for and are the things that intrinsically motivate us.
Sometimes low-level goals need to be given up on to achieve high-level goals.

I would definitely recommend reading this book.

Stay gritty,
PomPom