Success is never final, failure is never fatal !

How many of us start something new, full of excitement and with good intentions and then give up permanently when we encounter the first real obstacle, first long plateau in progress? How often do you complete what you have started, remove all the obstacles to keep going? Do you pursue an idea over a long time or soon move on to something else, in other words how committed are you to your ideas or are you someone whose interests change very frequently?

In her book, "GRIT-The Power of Passion and perseverance " author Angela Duckworth has beautifully decoded GRIT, arguably the most important life skill, irrespective of your age, occupation and circumstances. GRIT is about working on something you care so much that you are willing to stay loyal to it despite obstacles. Grit has two main elements, passion and perseverance.

Passion: The passion here is not the intensity of doing something, rather it's a consistency of a goal over a long time. The author has used “compass” as the metaphor for passion. Passion is something that takes time to build. You may finally get it right after exploring various interests. Once you are sure and committed to your passion, it guides you for the rest of your life on winding roads and will become your life philosophy.

Perseverance is the degree of strength of will, unwavering determination to stick to a course of action once decided. It’s the tendency not to abandon tasks in the face of obstacles.

Can Grit be measured and improved?

The author argues that Grit can be developed and need not be in the genes. There are people who may be inherently grittier than others, however there is substantial evidence that grit grows.The author has designed a very simple 10 point questionnaire to measure Grit (Grit scale) available on https://angeladuckworth.com/grit-scale/.

The author has prescribed 4 step approach for building and strengthening GRIT

1. Interests
2. Practice
3. Purpose
4. Hope

1) Interests

Follow your passion is a popular theme that we come across everywhere. Passion begins with intrinsically enjoying what we do. With the enduring fascination and childlike curiosity, passionate people say, I love what I do.

Most people would love to follow the passion, only if they know what their real passion is. The author points out that in most cases, there is no singular moment when you suddenly discover the God given passion. In her study, the author gathered that most grit paragons spent years exploring different interests and the one that eventually turned out to be their passion and life destiny wasn't evident early on. Passion is a little discovery, followed by a lot of development and then a lifetime of deepening. Finally, interests thrive when there is an encouraging supporter including parents, teachers, coaches and peers.

2.Practice

The author emphasizes on daily discipline of trying to do things better that we did yesterday. The key aspect of the practice is that the challenge must exceed the current level of skill. To be gritty is to resist the complacency and follow the attitude “whatever it takes I want to improve irrespective of how good I am.”

The author points out that the focus on talent distracts us from something which is at least as important, efforts. The author in fact argues that efforts count twice and has a simple yet powerful formula to elaborate this idea.

Talent x Effort = Skills;

Skill x Effort = Achievement

hence, effort matters twice

The author has recommended the following deliberate practice to improve on daily basis:

a) Stretch Goal with narrow aspect of overall performance,

b) Undivided attention & great effort to reach the stretch goal

c)Seek out feedback as soon as possible so that the improvement can be done faster.

d)Do it all over again, again and again until conscious incompetence becomes unconscious competence.

3. Purpose

The conviction that your work matters. Identifying your work as both personally interesting and integrally connected to the well-being of others. Purpose in this context is the intention to contribute to the well-being of others. Often, the purpose starts with self-oriented interests to self-disciplined practice to Interests oriented towards others. Having a purpose will help sustain the interest over a long period.

4.Hope

Hope is rising to the occasion kind of perseverance. At various points in a big way and small, we get knocked down. If we stay down, grit fails, if we get up grit prevails. Grit depends on the kind of hope which sounds like “I resolve to make tomorrow better” rather than I hope tomorrow will be better. The hope of the gritty people has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with getting up again. Hope is about moving from learned helplessness to learned optimism.

Mindset has a huge bearing on hope. The author has referred to Carol Dweck’s extensive work around human mindset. The research shows that people with fixed mindset associate success, failure with talent, whereas people with growth mindset always look for ways to improve and in turn succeed. 

Grit Culture

In conclusion, the author talks about inculcating grit culture which can be summarized as: Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It’s the courage that counts. Grit continues to glow not just in the afterglow of success but also in aftermath of failure.