The Power of Grit: Why Some Succeed Where Others Don't
When you see someone successful, what are your first thoughts? How many times have you seen a great athlete and muttered under your breath, well they’re just gifted? Or seen a great work of art and thought, I could never do that, they’re just artsy. Or seen an awesome invention and thought, I wish I was that smart? We often get drawn into this cycle of wishing we were capable of someone else’s great achievements. We look at their end result and forget that they put in hours of work behind the scenes to become the person we see. Often this leads to resentment or disgust toward that person. Even excuses as to why we aren’t as successful as they are. Every person is capable of achieving greatness and success, but few people grasp what it takes to get there. It comes down to finding our passion, and being just a little more gritty.
Why does grit determine success more than any other character trait? Why is talent not more important? I’ve found that talent is often overused and misunderstood. Is a young kid who’s bigger than his peers more talented or just genetically ahead at this moment. So often we tell a kid he’s talented, or gifted, or special and then we fail to push them to continue to develop. Then when the time comes that they’re finally tested, and in order to be great we will all be tested, they crumble. We don’t have the determination and resolve to overcome life’s challenges that test us to determine if we’re truly committed to do what it takes to be successful. Grit is defined by Merriam-Webster as “firmness of mind or spirt: unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger.” Grit is that stubbornness in all of us to stick with something until we get it right. It’s that part of us that holds onto a belief that we can achieve something when everyone else in the world is saying it’s impossible. It’s the willingness to get back up after every time we’re knocked down.
When I think of grit I often find myself thinking of Navy SEALs. Partly because cinema paints them as complete badasses and partly because of all accepted recruits into SEAL training only 25% complete the training. If that’s not the definition of grit I don’t know what is. When training starts every recruit scores similarly on mental aptitude, vision, physical fitness and a number of other standards. These are the best of the best the Navy has to offer, yet only 25% of all recruits survive. Why? Because when faced with adversity, when pushed to the limit, when faced with hardship and daily stress both mentally and physically; only those truly passionate, committed and gritty come out the other side. If you only like the idea of becoming a SEAL you won’t survive. Now I’m not a soldier, and I’ve never been through SEAL training, but if the reason recruits make it through isn’t more talent, a higher IQ, better vision, more athleticism, or being lucky or gifted, what is the difference?
Grit allows us to push onward when the world says to stop. When the critics say you can’t or you shouldn’t, the passion we have for our goals and the determination to see them through will carry us forward. As an athlete in my mid-thirties now I often get asked about how I can jump so well. “What training do you do for your vertical,” I often get asked. My response is often, “do you have a time machine to go back to when you were 12?” My vertical didn’t develop from a training program I did last week, month, or year. My vertical developed over years of jumping, running, and being an athlete. As a fifth grade kid I wanted to dunk like Michael Jordan so a buddy and me started a jump program. Not because mom and dad told me to, or because some trainer or coach encouraged me to, because I wanted to. Every day for twelve weeks, my friend and I would go to the elementary school and follow a vertical jump program. I was twelve years old.
As I got older I continued to jump and sprint and push myself to get higher and faster. There were several basketball hoops at my elementary school, and some of them weren’t ten feet tall. I started by dunking on the smallest hoop, then added in trick dunks, then moved on to the next highest hoop, and again more trick dunks. When my friends got tired and left, I stayed, jumping and dunking. Years of jumps later I got to high school and was a 5’10” kid that could dunk. I didn’t roll out of bed with a great vertical I worked for it, when others weren’t watching, when others weren’t willing, I worked. I did the work for me, not because I was told to or because someone else wanted me to, but because it was my passion. Find your passion and pursue it while others wait for your success. Don’t let setbacks and failures push you off course, but allow them to define your next steps along the way.
Grit also allows us to hold onto long term goals when others can’t see what we’re working for. That vision of what we want to be or create, the passion we have to create it can be lost on others. They will doubt you and tell you you’re wasting your time and it can’t be done, but our grit allows us to ignore those people, to forge on and continue down the path we know will get us there. When I think of this ability to envision what we want I often find myself thinking of the works of Michelangelo.
Did you know it took him two years to create the statue of David? It took him another four years to do the Sistine Chapel. Imagine walking past him working on the statue of David six months into its creation and seeing a block of marble chipped at and vaguely in the shape of a person. Would you share Michelangelo’s vision of what was being created? Would you have the steely reserve to continue to pound the stone every day sometimes seeing no change in the piece in front of you. Would you have the patiences to move slowly and cautiously everyday knowing that one mistake and all the work you put in would be wasted? There’s not exactly an undo last move button when it comes to marble. Could you put all your attention into one single detail until it becomes exactly how you want it? Do you have enough grit?
I could go on describing hundreds of different situations and people who have displayed grit over the centuries to become great, but I’d rather express the importance of finding your passion. Find something that motivates you to put in more work than you’ve ever thought possible. Find something that drives you every morning, afternoon and night, and then still when you fall asleep you dream about it. Develop a resolve that no matter what critics say or setbacks you face, you know what you’re working toward. Then focus your efforts everyday on that small improvement until you become the expert, until you achieve success and then when others claim you’re an overnight success you can just smile and nod knowing that nobody put in more work than you. That you’re a result of constant and consistent effort, pounded and forged over time like the great Statue of David, one strike at a time. One small section; until you, yourself are the masterpiece.
