Let’s talk about (gr)it.
Below is an excerpt from my book, The Power of Pivot: A Female Perspective on Embracing Change, (Now available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08DRXLVB4)
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Angela Duckworth could very easily be called the “Queen of Grit,” as she’s dedicated most of her life’s work to this single concept. When she talks about grit, she doesn’t just mean hard work and commitment. She also attributes the concept of passion to the idea of grit.
Her own interest in the topic arose when she noticed a fascinating dichotomy while teaching middle and high school students. The most talented students weren’t necessarily the ones who performed the best academically. Her research accredits grit as the explanation for the lack of correlation between IQ and performance. She points to four characteristics in those who have a high level of grit:
- You have something you find enduringly fascinating: Take a mental voyage back to your adolescent self. What did you find of extreme interest? What do you find yourself losing track of time in? For Gitanjali, it all began with those science kits as a child.
- You view frustrations as a necessary part of the process: In the movie Apollo 13, Ed Harris, who was acting as Gene Kranz, chief flight director of the Apollo and Gemini programs, famously said, “Failure is not an option.”[2] In the context of the movie, and space travel in general, that quote is most fitting. However, most daily activities we take part in are not life or death, or make or break for that matter. Duckworth believes the perception and reframing of failure in our lives is a key component to cultivating grit. When was the last time you embraced an opportunity in which you weren’t entirely sure you would succeed? When the two founders of Shrinky Dinks purchased the 1000 pound roll of plastic, I surmise they had absolutely no idea whether or not their business idea would be successful.
- You look for ways to make work more meaningful: An experiment at Google asked employees to redefine their job responsibilities in a way that made them appear more meaningful. What Google found was that employees were able to increase job satisfaction and performance just by “rethinking” about their duties in a more purposeful lens. For Gitanjali, she found the application of the nanotube technology to solve Flint’s water crisis to be the most impactful option that suited her skills and passions.
- You believe you can change and grow: Dr. Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford, found that people with a growth mindset put in more time and effort at work and have more resilience. How have you utilized a growth mindset when undergoing external changes or to catalyze your own change within yourself? Personally, I credit much of the success I’ve had in life to my belief in my own ability to change, adapt, and grow.
Duckworth’s research points to the conclusion that grit is a characteristic that can be nurtured and developed consciously throughout one’s life. She explains that to make a pivot toward practicing grit, one should first and foremost pursue what interests them, then, practice and iterate on those pursuits, seek to find purpose in their work, and have hope.
For pursuing those things that interest you, inquiry is an instrumental variable here. You don’t need to go on a soul-searching mission to find your interests. Instead, think about what might be of interest to you and seek it out with child-like curiosity. Whether it’s rock climbing, ballroom dancing, or blogging, tackle one or more areas of interest, not because it’s something you can “check off the list,” but instead, doing so simply because you can.
Regarding the idea of practice, Dr. Adam Grant, renowned organizational psychologist and professor, believes interest precedes talent. Under this assumption, you might not be the best at whatever you’re trying to accomplish, but you shouldn’t let that stop you. Let that inspire you on the never-ending journey of continuous improvement. The word “practice” itself implies that there is something to be improved upon, and that’s ok. James Waters, former Navy SEAL, describes this concept like this: “One of the key strengths of the SEAL Teams is the culture of constant self-improvement. No one ever says, “That’s good enough.” On almost every real world mission I was on — even the most successful ones — we spent 90 percent of our post-mission debrief focusing on what we did wrong or could have done better.”
For finding purpose, there’s a lot of research that suggests those who are focused on helping others achieve their goals are happier themselves (and we’ll dig deeper into this in Chapter 7). Like characteristic #3 above, Duckworth herself says, “What ripens passion is the conviction that your work matters. For most people, interest without purpose is nearly impossible to sustain for a lifetime. It is therefore imperative that you identify your work as both personally interesting and, at the same time, integrally connected to the well-being of others.”
For the concept of hope, it doesn’t necessarily mean to recklessly depend on tomorrow, next week, or next year to be dramatically better than any part of your life today. Instead, hope is about cultivating the effort required today as the security deposit to that experience, that thing, or that feeling you hope to have at a future time. For Gitanjali, for example, this looked like sending out hundreds of emails to labs all over the country. Hope is critical, as research found that those with lower levels of hope set lower goals and were less motivated to continue if they failed.
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In this article series, I share excerpts, stories, and musings from my book, The Power of Pivot. I hope you enjoyed this post — if you enjoyed it and want to connect you can reach me via email [thepowerofpivot@gmail.com], or through my website: http://www.thepowerofpivot.co/#/
