11 Signs You Have the Grit
You Need to Succeed
Grit is as difficult to develop as it is important. Learn how to
build this skill and give yourself an edge in life.
There
are a ton of qualities that can help you succeed, and the more carefully a quality has been studied, the
more you know it's worth your time and energy.
Angela
Lee Duckworth was teaching seventh grade when she noticed that the material
wasn't too advanced for any of her students. They all had the ability to grasp
the material if they put in the time and effort. Her highest-performing students weren't those who had
the most natural talent; they were the students who had that extra something that motivated them to work harder than everyone
else.
Angela grew fascinated by this "extra
something" in her students and, since she had a fair amount of it herself,
she quit her teaching job so that she could study the concept while obtaining a
graduate degree in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Her study, which is ongoing, has already
yielded some interesting findings. She's analyzed a bevy of people to whom
success is important: students, military personnel, salespeople, and spelling
bee contestants, to name a few. Over time, she has come to the conclusion that
the majority of successful people all share one critical thing--grit.
Grit
is that "extra something" that separates the most successful people from the rest. It's the passion,
perseverance, and stamina that we must channel to stick with our dreams until
they become a reality.
Developing grit is all about habitually doing
the things that no one else is willing to do. There are quite a few signs that
you have grit, and if you aren't doing the following on a regular basis, you
should be.
1. You have to make mistakes, look like an idiot, and try
again, without even flinching.
In a recent study at the College of William
and Mary, researchers interviewed over 800 entrepreneurs and found that the
most successful among them tend to have two critical things in common: They're
terrible at imagining failure and they tend not to care what other people think
of them. In other words, the most successful entrepreneurs put no time or
energy into stressing about their failures, because they see failure as a small
and necessary step in the process of reaching their goals.
2. You have to fight when you already feel
defeated.
A reporter once asked Muhammad Ali how many
sit-ups he does every day. "I don't count my sit-ups," he responded.
"I only start counting when it starts hurting, when I feel pain, cause
that's when it really matters." The same applies to success in the workplace.
You always have a choice when things begin to get tough: You can either
overcome an obstacle and grow in the process, or you can let it beat you.
Humans are creatures of habit. If you quit when things get tough, it gets that
much easier to quit the next time. On the other hand, if you force yourself to
push through it, the grit begins to grow in you.
3. You have to make the calls you're afraid
to make.
Sometimes we have to do things we don't want
to do because we know they're for the best in the long-run: fire someone, cold
call a stranger, pull an all-nighter to get the company server back up, or
scrap a project and start over. It's easy to let the looming challenge paralyze
you, but the most successful people know that in these moments, the best thing
they can do is to get started right away. Every moment spent dreading the task
subtracts time and energy from actually getting it done. People that learn to
habitually make the tough calls stand out like flamingos in a flock of
seagulls.
4. You have to keep your emotions in check.
Negative emotions will challenge your grit
every step of the way. While it's impossible not to feel your emotions, it's
completely within your power to manage them effectively and to keep yourself in
a position of control. When you let your emotions overtake your ability to
think clearly, it's easy to lose your resolve. A bad mood can make you lash out
or stray from your chosen direction just as easily as a good mood can make you
overconfident and impulsive.
5. You have to trust your gut.
There's a fine line between trusting your gut
and being impulsive. Trusting your gut is a matter of looking at decisions from
every possible angle, and when the facts don't present a clear alternative, you
believe in your ability to choose; you go with what looks and feels right.
6. You have to give more than you get in
return.
There's a famous Stanford experiment where an
administrator leaves a child in a room with a marshmallow for 15 minutes,
telling the child that she's welcome to eat the marshmallow, but if she can
wait until the experimenter gets back without eating it, she will get a second
marshmallow. The children that were able to wait until the experimenter
returned experienced better outcomes in life, including higher SAT scores, greater
career success, and even lower body mass indexes. The point is that delay
of gratification and patience are essential to success. People with grit know
that real results only materialize when you put in the time and forego instant
gratification.
7. You have to lead when no one else follows.
It's
easy to set a direction and believe in yourself when you have support, but the
true test of grit is how well you maintain your resolve when nobody else believes in what you're doing.
People with grit believe in themselves no matter what and they stay the course
until they win people over to their way of thinking.
8. You have to meet deadlines that are
unreasonable and deliver results that exceed expectations.
Successful people find a way to say yes and
still honor their existing commitments. They know the best way to stand out
from everyone else is to outwork them. For this reason, they have a tendency to
over deliver, even when they overpromise.
9. You have to focus on the details even when it makes
your mind numb.
Nothing tests your grit like mind-numbing
details, especially when you're tired. The more people with grit are
challenged, the more they dig in and welcome that challenge, and numbers and
details are no exception to this.
10. You have to be kind to people who have
been rude to you.
When people treat you poorly, it's tempting
to stoop to their level and return the favor. People with grit don't allow
others to walk all over them, but that doesn't mean they're rude to them,
either. Instead, they treat rude and cruel people with the same kindness they
extend to anyone else, because they won't allow another person's negativity to
bring them down.
11. You have to be accountable for your
actions, no matter what.
People are far more likely to remember how
you dealt with a problem than they are how you created it in the first place.
By holding yourself accountable, even when making excuses is an option, you
show that you care about results more than your image or ego.
Bringing it all together.
Grit is as rare as it is important. The good
news is any of us can get grittier with a little extra focus and effort.
BY TRAVIS BRADBERRY
http://www.inc.com/travis-bradberry/11-signs-you-have-the-grit-you-need-to-succeed.html?cid=em01016week07a
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