A short podcast episode (Heroic +1) by Brian Johnson connecting traditional ideas of grit to contemporary psychological research. It summarizes Angela Duckworth’s definition of grit as passion plus perseverance and Caroline Adams Miller’s practical guidance on ‘struggling well’ — accepting hard work and making peace with discomfort to pursue big goals. The episode encourages listeners to cultivate grit and persist.
Hey, hero, if you're enjoying these daily plus ones, make sure you head to heroic us to check out all of the other goodness we have to help you activate your best every day. And now, today's plus one.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. In our last plus one, we talked about old school grit. More specifically, we celebrated Darren Donnelly's wisdom on the subject from his great book by the same name, which happens to be book number two in his Sports for the Soul series. Have you checked out our notes on all of them? I'm telling you, sports books are a great way to share the wisdom with those who may not be as naturally inclined to geek out on such ideas. I've got the quick links in this +1 again. Check them out. Now, moving on to the focus of today's plus one. Today, I want to connect that old school grit to modern science Grit. We'll invite two of the field's leading thinkers to join us, Angela Duckworth and Caroline Adams Miller. Angela Duckworth is the leading researcher in the field of grit. As you know, if you've been following along, she literally wrote the book on the subject. Check out our notes on grit for more on the origin story of her research, the fact that effort counts twice, and practical ideas on how to grow your grit. For now, know that Angela tells us this, and I why were the highly accomplished so dogged in their pursuits? For most, there was no realistic expectation of ever catching up to their ambitions. In their own eyes, they were never good enough. They were the opposite of complacent. And yet, in a very real sense, they were satisfied with being unsatisfied. Each was chasing something of unparalleled interest and importance. And it was the chase as much as the capture that was gratifying. Even if some of the things they had to do were boring or frustrating or even painful, they wouldn't dream of giving up. Their passion was enduring. She continues by saying, in sum, no matter the domain, the highly successful had a kind of ferocious determination that played out in two ways. First, these exemplars were unusually resilient and hardworking. Second, they knew in a very, very deep way what it was they wanted. They not only had determination, they had direction. It was this combination of passion and perseverance that made high achievers special. In a word, they had grit. End quote. Thank you for your gritty work establishing the science of grit, Dr. Duckworth. Seriously. Applause now it's time to invite one of the leading practitioners helping us apply the science of grit to our modern lives. Caroline Adams Miller is the author of a great book called Getting Grit. In that book, she tells us, and I quote her positive Psychology's Chris Peterson was fond of saying that thriving people are good at struggling. Well, as we all know, life is full of challenges, particularly if we choose to set grand goals. But what separates people who don't have grit from people who do is often this issue of working hard and overcoming difficulties without losing focus, equanimity or passion that is struggling well. So if you want to cultivate grit but you don't have a constructive relationship with discomfort, failure and delayed gratification, it's imperative to find ways to make your peace with these conditions. She continues by saying, and I quote again, one of the most intriguing findings in Angela Duckworth's research on grit is that high grit people hate hard work as much as those who don't have grit. High grit people simply accept hard work as the price they must pay to get where they want to go, and so they find ways to do it. As the late boxer and humanitarian Mohammed Ali put it, I hated every minute of training, but I said, don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion. And that's today's plus one. How's your grit? Don't quit. Day one all in. Let's go, hero.
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