GRIT, Winning the marathon through passion and perseverance

What is GRIT

From a motivational and psychological perspective, the characteristic of ‘grit’ has been suggested as a key to success in life (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews & Kelly, 2007).

The hare and the tortoise fable teaches children the value of perseverance, or ‘plodding along’. While it is a well-intentioned story, a fast persevering hare will outrun a slow persevering tortoise. It is not simply perseverance that leads to success but also passion, drive and motivation to achieve your goals coupled with resilience to continue despite setbacks.

To have grit is to passionately work towards longterm goals and to persevere despite adversity or setbacks. Or, in other words, to have both the energy (or passion) of the hare and the perseverance of the tortoise.

Passion, drive and motivation

The passion component of grit is an internal motivator focused on individual action and ambition, providing the means to break through the glass ceiling of performance.

Individuals with constructive levels of passion and drive have greater activity in the left frontal lobe, they are focused on achievement and they show tenacity in the face of early failures (Amodio et al., 2004; Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Markovits et al., 2008; Mehta & Josephs, 2006).

When this energy is over-emphasised and misdirected, it can lead to divisive competition and aggression (McAndrew, 2009). It can also lead to people being exclusively task-oriented, and seeing other people as a means to achieving their own success and rise to power. Ironically, success is rarely realised without building and maintaining constructive relationships.

The NeuroPower™ framework outlines three key ways to develop constructive passion, drive and motivation:

1. Identify different markers of excellence so that each individual has a different area in which they excel

2. Enable feedback mechanisms and rewards to reinforce efforts towards achieving a goal

3. Align individual aspirations and motivations with organisational objectives, to redirect individual competitiveness towards shared competitive advantage

The benefit of motivation and passion is that people will be focused and energised, however when this turns into unconstructive competition, people are more likely to become aggressive, egocentric and burnout.

Passion is best coupled with other traits, to ensure it remains constructive, as such, passion and ambition are just one component of grit. Ambitious people compete with others, whereas gritty people compete with themselves by remaining focused on their goals.

Purposeful goals

Grit is associated with extraordinary success, and therefore requires a long-term commitment towards purposeful goals. Goal setting has been consistently linked with performance (Locke & Latham, 1990), so therefore it is unsurprising that it is a key component of grit.

People develop grit by setting the bar through the lens of excellence, rather than perfection. While seemingly similar, perfection and excellence are very different constructs. Perfection nurtures behaviours considered pedantic, unforgiving and inflexible; leading to anxiety, low self-esteem, obsessive compulsive behaviours, substance abuse and depression (Flett, Hewitt & Heisel, 2014). Seeking excellence is a constructive, noble attitude rather than an outcome. It enables us to continually progress towards achieving purposeful goals.

People can increase their grit by setting longterm goals that are meaningful. While short term ‘quick wins’ might help people stay motivated along the way, it is the more significant goals (in size and importance) that will increase grit and therefore success

Resilience

On the pathway to success, individuals need resilience to keep moving toward goals despite inevitable setbacks. As an essential component of grit, resilience can be thought of as a combination of three social cognitive needs: optimism, confidence and creativity.

Highly resilient people have a toolbox of physical, cognitive and emotional strategies to use during challenging circumstances that potentially prevent them from progressing towards their goals.

The following evidence-based strategies have the most significant impact on resilience. Adopting these are likely to increase an individual’s grit:

• 30 minutes of exercise 3 times per week

• 7 hours of sleep per night

• Use a trusted mentor to debrief

• Regularly practice focused, present attention

• Deep breathing

Reactivity regulation

In addition to the above five, reactivity regulation is one of the most powerful ways to build resilience. In his 2011 book, ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’, renowned Israeli-American psychologist Dr Daniel Kahneman identifies the brain’s reactive habitual System 1 as the fast and intuitive system and the rational System 2 as the slower and deliberate system of reasoning.

Affective vs cognitive, automatic vs controlled and reactive vs responsive are all labels that psychologists and researchers have used for these cognitive types since Schneider and Shiffrin’s research in the 1970s, but we will refer to the terms ‘reactive habitual’ and ‘rational’.

The reactive habitual system is focused on instinctive, automatic and habitual behaviour; or doing what comes naturally. It is rooted in the primitive survival system that was essential in the face of physical threat in the past; essentially it is fast and reactive, but unconstructive. People often fail to recognise that their behaviour or decision-making has been affected by their reactive habitual system.

The rational system is considered a more modern function of the brain, focused on dealing with highlevel complexity and creating novel ideas and solutions. It is more pro-active and constructive than the reactive habitual system and allows abstract, reflective and hypothetical thought processes. Most people have a good understanding of their rational system and, when asked about how they arrived at a particular decision (such as buying a house) they can usually recall their thought processes.

Grittier people have a greater ability to manage their reactive habitual system when it is triggered. Learning to manage the reactive habitual system will help an individual respond constructively during challenging circumstances and build their resilience to keep moving toward their goals. This emotional regulation helps to shift people from the emotional and reactive mindset and increase the time spent in the rational, constructive system.

When a person’s mind is clouded by the reactive habitual system, it has a limited capacity to process the strong emotion that was triggered. This inhibits people’s ability to innovate, think strategically, build strong relationships and evaluate situations rationally. When faced with a challenge, the rational mindset provides the clarity to question a habitual response, reappraise a situation and take constructive action to move forwards.

The grittier the better

In a group of people with equal talent, the grittier people will outperform those with less grit (Duckworth, 2013). Talent or intelligence is no longer considered the key correlate of success. Another way to describe it is ‘untapped potential’. For example, there may be the best swimmer in the world sitting in a grade 9 classroom, but without the opportunity, drive and motivation to unleash their swimming potential they will not win an Olympic medal. If people don’t have the drive and motivation, inherent ability will lie dormant. “The most successful people in life are both talented and gritty” (Duckworth, 2013).

So how do we build grit? How do we develop a solid work ethic coupled with motivation for the long run? Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck suggests that a growth mindset might give people a huge step forward. The belief that the ability to learn is not fixed and that it can change with effort increases grit – as the brain changes and grows in response to challenge. With more than 30 years of solid research, Dweck has found that people with a growth mindset are more successful, productive, motivated, make better CEOs, more satisfied in their relationships and make better parents and coaches (Dweck, 2006).

Four key steps to developing a growth mindset:

1. Identify any thoughts you have that emerge from a fixed mindset (eg. I’m not creative, I have a bad memory, I can’t achieve that goal)

2. Acknowledge that there is always an alternative perspective

3. Adopt a constructive, growth mindset (e.g. I can do it if I work harder or practice)

4. Take action based on this reappraisal

When we shift our perspective from life being a string of sprints, to life being a marathon, we grow grittier.

Top 7 ways to develop grit

1. Link every activity you undertake to your core purpose and plan ways that you can outsource or delegate other activities

2. When the fear of failure rises, learn how to put that thought to one side and focus on immediate action you can to take to progress forward with your objectives

3. Practice regulating unconstructive reactivity, e.g. through breath, switching to a constructive mindset, or emotional regulation

4. Review your long-term goals on a daily basis to check that you are on track

5. Strive for excellence, not perfection

6. Observe how you react when you have unforeseen shocks and experiement different ways that you bounce back. Develop your formula to minimise this bounce back time

Think through how what you do immediately links to longer term success and check this assumed cause and effect is accurate. In this way, actively measure your lead and lag indicators of success.

A final thought

In an environment where talent is everywhere, grit will set high performers apart from the rest. Passion and motivation alone will not enable people to achieve their goals, but lead them toward burnout, failure and exhaustion; far too prevalent in professional services firms.

Viewing life as a series of sprints will lead to burnout. Set meaningful, long-term goals, navigate the road blocks, limit unconstructive reactivity and build your resilience to win the marathon.

References

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• Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. The Random House Publishing Group, New York, NY.

• Flett, G. L., Hewitt, P. L. & Heisel, M. J. (2014). The destructiveness of perfectionism revisited: Implications for the assessment of suicide risk and the prevention of suicide. Review of General Psychology, 18(3), pp.156-172.

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