The author Angela Duckworth (who wrote the book Grit) has defined grit as passion and perseverance for long-term goals. Grit is the result of nurturing a growth mindset.
Mindset is connected to grit because we may have everything it takes to succeed but we need to be mentally set up to roll with the setbacks that inevitably pop up in life.
A growth mindset views deficiencies in skill as temporary whereas with a fixed mindset we are more likely to withdraw from a challenge because we see it as a threat to our competence. This is why we need to be aware of our fixed mindset triggers.
One of the biggest triggers for many of us is how we view mistakes. When we are coming from a fixed mindset the belief is if I’m doing it correctly there will be no struggle or failure. In a fixed mindset, we are also not able to make sense of our failure so we become discouraged, less motivated and our performance suffers as a result.
With a growth mindset, success comes from your response to mistakes. We have to be conscious of our mindset and treat mistakes as learning. Fluctuations in our performance are part of the process and when we see it this way we are more likely to stay fully engaged.
The other way we develop grit is by aligning our goal with our interests and values as that’s what makes it possible to sustain effort over the long term. We need to take time to discover what we care about and then regularly prime our enthusiasm.
What do you want in your health, in your relationships, and for your career and contributions? Take some time to reconnect with the answers to those questions so you know the importance of what you are working towards.
-Coach Liane
