Do you want your child to be a high achiever? Invest your time in cultivating grit (and don’t forget to lead by example ☺)
Angela Duckworth has conducted fascinating research on why some people achieve their goals, and some people fail to do so. In summary, high achievers have grit. And it’s powerful stuff. Basically, if you really want to achieve something, you need to be passionate about it and show up every day for however long it takes to make your dream come true. Intense passion + intense perseverance.
We’ve already talked about her formula of achievement, which is basically the Grit equation (check it out):
Talent x Effort= Skill
Skill x Effort= Achievement
So remember, effort counts twice.
Angela says that if you want to cultivate grit (in yourself or in your child), you need to remember four key things: Passion + Practice + Purpose + Hope
Passion
You need to have a strong internal motivation. Something that really fires you up. You will not put the sustained effort if you’re interested in something just a little bit or just because someone else wants you to do it. Yes, we all will have some, as Angela calls it “firework passion” time to time – but this is something that comes and goes. But here it’s all about your compass passion (or as Sir Ken Robinson calls it “the element”) – something that guides your life for years or even decades.
Practice
As you can imagine, just passion is not enough. You need to roll your sleeves up and do the work. Moment to moment. Every day. And no excuses. Gritty people design their life around passion
Purpose
If you want to turn your passion into a real success and build a sustainable grit, you need to have a real purpose. Deep and intrinsic. Fancy new phone or living somewhere like the Maldives will not work. You should make it bigger than yourself.
Hope
The road to success will not be silky-smooth. You will face challenges and failures. But you need to have hope. That means that you need to believe that the future will be better then your present and that you have the power to make it so if you put the required effort.
Do you know how Dawid got his first medal at the World Rowing Championship? Since childhood, he fostered a profound passion for rowing. Day after day, he showed up for practice, diligently following his coaches’ guidance and learning from seasoned rowers. He immersed himself in the art of rowing, from training techniques to nutrition and sleep patterns, all with the goal of becoming the best rowing athlete he could be and bringing success to Poland (the shiny medal was just a delightful bonus 😉). He firmly believed that if he exerted his utmost effort, success would eventually follow. And it did.
So how do you think your grit is? Are you setting a good example for your child? You can test it with Angela’s questionnaire 🙂
Loads of love,
Irina & Dawid
