have more grit

Never give up. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do. Be true to yourself, and The grittiest individuals place high value on challenging goals, put low estimates on the costs of working toward these goals (including opportunity costs, discussed below), and hold expectations that these goals are feasible. Crucially, they continue to maintain high expected valuations for their goals despite failures, setbacks, and other kinds of adversity. I’ve found in my research that individuals who spontaneously search for changeable, specific causes of adversity in their lives are grittier than individuals who tend to catastrophize when things go wrong. In other words, optimists are grittier than pessimists. Likewise, grit is positively correlated with having a “growth mindset,” believing that your ability to learn can develop with effort. Separate research on optimism and growth mindset incontrovertibly demonstrate that the belief that change is possible leads to sustained effort and the belief that change is not leads to the opposite. ? Expectations matter, but so does the value we place on what we are doing. So, another psychological antecedent to grit is how important, interesting, or otherwise valuable our goals are to us. And, too, how much we value achievement relative to other ends in life (e.g., the quality of our personal relationships, new and pleasurable experiences). So, the very rich psychological literature on intrinsic motivation, on interests, on prosocial purpose, and on values can help illuminate why some individuals seem so very passionate about what they do whereas others are less so. The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be outworked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things — you got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there’s two things: You’re getting off first, or I’m going to die. It’s really that simple…” -Oscar-nominated actor and Grammy award-winning musician Will Smith The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be outworked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things — you got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there’s two things: You’re getting off first, or I’m going to die. It’s really that simple…” -Oscar-nominated actor and Grammy award-winning musician Will Smith a growth mindset encourages children to construe failures and setbacks as opportunities to learn and improve, rather than as evidence that they are permanently lacking in ability In 1907, William James speculated, “We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental resources…men the world over possess amounts of resource, which only exceptional individuals push to their extremes of use” (James, 1907, p. 322-323). James advocated that psychologists direct their efforts at two main questions: First, what is the full range of human abilities? Second, through what diverse means are these abilities unleashed? In our view, the past century has witnessed more progress toward the first challenge than the second. Relatively less is known about traits that enable expression of the abilities in which we are now well-versed. We have, in other words, focused our attention on identifying and understanding the hares among us. It is time to think seriously about the tortoises and what keeps them going. Grit is the tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals. Self-control is the voluntary regulation of behavioral, emotional, and attentional impulses in the presence of momentarily gratifying temptations or diversions. On average, individuals who are gritty are more self-controlled, but the correlation between these two traits is not perfect: some individuals are paragons of grit but not self-control, and some exceptionally well-regulated individuals are not especially gritty. While we haven’t fully worked out how these two traits are related, it seems that an important distinction has to do with timescale: As Galton (1892) suggested, the inclination to pursue especially challenging aims over months, years, and even decades is distinct from the capacity to resist “the hourly temptations,” pursuits which bring momentary pleasure but are immediately regretted. In terms of Big Five personality, grit and self-control both load on the conscientiousness factor, which also encompasses dependability, punctuality, and orderliness, among other facets (Duckworth, et al., 2007; MacCann, Duckworth, & Roberts, 2009). Alternatively, many economists consider grit and self-control to be exemplars of “non-cognitive” dimensions of human capital, terminology which persists as a useful moniker for traits other than cognitive ability despite its obvious inadequacies (Borghans, Duckworth, Heckman, & ter Weel, 2008; Duckworth, 2009). Some educators typically prefer the umbrella term “social and emotional learning,” whereas many other educators, as well as philosophers and positive psychologists, embrace the moral connotations of “character” and “virtue.” So, grit and self-control are facets of Big Five conscientiousness, but are also conceptualized as dimensions of human character, social and emotional competency, and non-cognitive human capital. Teddy Roosevelt, a Grand Sire of Grit, spoke about the importance of overcoming fear and managing vulnerability in an address he made at the Sorbonne in 1907. He stated: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strived valiantly; who errs, who comes again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. there are five core character traits from which all human personalities stem called… get this…The Big Five. They are: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and NeuroticAccording to Duckworth, of the five personality traits, conscientiousness is the most closely associated with grit. However, it seems that there are two types, and how successful you will be depends on what type you are. Conscientiousness in this context means, careful and painstaking; meticulous the latter a function of the intensity, direction, and duration of one’s exertions towards a long-term goal.” he defines resilience as “the ability of people, communities, and systems to maintain their core purpose and integrity among unforeseen shocks and surprises