Things worth having are also worth working for.

Fighting through pain, sweat, and fatigue to get the results you want is the definition of perseverance.  Having perseverance means you do not stop when you are tired, you stop when you reach your goal.  To finally come out on the other side of adversity successfully takes perseverance, patience, and grit.

 

What is grit?

Having grit means to have strength greater than any discouragement that comes your way and having the perseverance to never give up in the pursuit of a goal.

A person with true grit has passion and perseverance. Your goals are set and followed through.  A person who works incredibly hard to follow through on commitments has true grit that isn’t swayed by anything.

 

The Result of Grit

Some of the strongest performers and workers in the world do not have a high IQ or some fancy advantage.  In fact billionaires such as Oprah Winfrey and Mark Cuban came from a disadvantages background.  With that said, Some of the people you aspire to be like are no smarter than you or have something special that you do not.

Every single person can do anything they want in life if they work hard and long enough – if they persevere with grit.

This is a key quality missing in almost every person today. What people need is a much better understanding of learning and doing from a motivational and psychological perspective.

Doing well in school and life depends on much more than your ability to work “quickly” and “easily.”

A conducted test showed that one characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success throughout many different types of people and their lifestyles.

It wasn’t social intelligence, good looks, optimal physical health, and definitely not IQ.

It was GRIT. Grit is the number one thing needed to achieve those long term goals.  Grit is passion and perseverance for sticking to something in the long run, and is a characteristic of a successful persona.

 

Grit is pushing through no matter what the difficulties or challenges for years to reach that long term goal. You work extremely hard to make that future you want a reality.

In the simplest sense, grit is living life like its a marathon, not a sprint.

Research has even shown that gritter kids in school were significantly more likely to graduate, even when matched on every measurable characteristic possible – family income, standardized achievement test scores (SATS), and even safety at school.  Furthermore, in the workplace, individuals with grit are more outgoing to fiind creative solutions in the face of adversity.

When you think about it at school, you have the kids that don’t want to be there purely because they can’t be bothered or they believe they are not smart enough, right?

If they transformed their mindset and teaching methods were changed to be more motivational or psychologically persuasive, these kids might actually be willing to learn and thus build grit.

Those who are jumping to answer questions in class filled with enthusiasm might not even have a high IQ – they just want something so bad that they are willing to persevere through the challenges to achieve their goal future. That is grit.

The most shocking thing about grit which may also surprise you is how little everyone knows about it, and, in particular, how little science knows about building it.

Grit is always there – it’s just a matter of building it.

But people all around the world find it extremely difficult to keep motivated for the long run or to build themselves a solid work ethic. Why?

Why are there so many talented individuals who simply do not follow through with their commitments?

Grit is unrelated or inversely related to measures of talent. If someone believes they can’t do or achieve something because they aren’t talented enough, then they are burying their grit instead of building it up.

You have to believe you can do it for anything to happen at all. You can’t quit before you have even started.

The best idea of building grit currently is a method known as the “growth mindset.” This is the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed – it can change with your effort.

For example, it is seen that when kids read and learn about the brain, how it changes and grows in response to challenge, these kids are much more likely to persevere when they fail because they don’t believe that failure is a permanent condition!

And that is precisely right. Failure is not a permanent condition. Failure is a lesson, and most times, failure is inevitable.

 

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison

The growth mindset is one brilliant way to build grit, but there’s much more to it than that. That is something most people have to determine for themselves.

People need to take their best ideas, strongest intuitions, and they need to test them. They need to measure whether they have been successful.

 

But most importantly, people need to be willing to fail because if fear of failure is holding you back, you will never begin.

People are scared to fail, and that’s why many don’t have the grit to get through something challenging.  Fear of failure is a massive issue with most people and they are really only robbing themselves from the experience.  With that said, failure needs to be accepted and you have to be willing to fail, to be wrong, and to start over again with the new lessons learned.

From there, you improve yourself again and again. It’s a process that never ends, and if it never happens, you won’t advance yourself anywhere.

You won’t become who you want to be. Instead, you’re stuck being someone you despise, and you’re trapped in a place you won’t ever escape unless you accept failure. You won’t escape the dark, sulky, pitiful setting. You will never reach the bright, beautiful place you’ve always dreamed of reaching.

Practice and build your grit. Embrace passion and perseverance.

You will find yourself moving forward and progressing throughout life towards what you once dreamed – which will now be a reality.