Thinking I was all by myself, I began to make my way down when I met another traveler who was making his way up last minute. I showed him around until we decided to go back down. By the time we arrived at the bottom, we realized that we were the only two people there. We made our way through the tunnel where we realized that we were locked inside. 

Confusion began to set in as we didn’t know how we could escape. We began to question each other. We tried to come up with some ideas to get out. There was nothing. The doors were locked, and climbing up the fence was useless as it was just boxed in. Desperation set in as we wanted to avoid security and the scene they would possibly make. Plus, it was my birthday! I was determined not to spend the entire night there when I could be traveling and eating something delicious!

We looked around the gated fence to see if there was some way out. Luckily, we spotted a small opening from the fence that required us to pull it open – it seems we weren’t the only people to have been in this situation. 

I pulled back on the fence and gave my fellow traveler enough room to squeeze through. I then was able to angle myself to where I could go through the fence. As soon as we got out and walked towards the front of the gate, a police car drove up and stopped beside us. Luckily, he thought we were with another group of people who were taking pictures .  

My experience may not have been life changing, but it does showcase what someone can do when they are really determined to accomplish something. For me, it was so that I could be enjoying my birthday somewhere else, to eat something delicious, and to avoid being questioned for a while.

But, what about you? Have you faced moments where you could no longer continue, or just didn’t know how to continue? Maybe you’ve reached a point where you’ve asked yourself, “how do I move forward when I just want to give up?”

The answer to this question is grit. But, what does grit even mean?

What is Grit?

Grit, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is the “firmness of mind or spirit: unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger.”

Firmness of mind or spirit? Unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger? Let’s define this even further.

What does “firmness” even mean? Looking back at Webster’s Dictionary, firmness is defined as: “securely or solidly fixed in place; not weak or uncertain; not subject to change or revision; not easily moved or disturbed; indicating firmness or resolution.”

Therefore, firmness represents something that is fixed in place, with signs of certainty, something that won’t change. It is securely in place.

“Mind” and “spirit” are more abstract. It is something within the individual itself (or community) that guides the person (or community). But, what does it mean? Again, looking back at Webster’s Dictionary, they offer various definitions for mind. What seems fitting for this, however, is the following: “Intention, Desire.”

Lastly, we find the following definition for “spirit:” 

Temper or disposition of mind or outlook especially when vigorous or animated; the immaterial intelligent or sentient part of a person; the activating or essential principle influencing a person; a special attitude or frame of mind; a lively or brisk quality in a person or a person’s actions; a person having a character or disposition of a specified nature; a mental disposition characterized by firmness or assertiveness.

While there are more definitions for Spirit, we must find one that best suits our needs here. For this case, we will define spirit as “a mental disposition characterized by firmness or assertiveness.”

Therefore, “mind” and “spirit” represent something that is representative of one’s mental disposition of intention and desire that is shown by their firmness, or that which is certain and secure (which won’t change) as well as their assertiveness. 

Understanding firmness, mind, and spirit, we can now better understand what grit is. Grit is a fixed desire that is displayed as unchanging certainty during difficult times.

To add onto that, in a 2013 Ted Talk given by Angela Lee Ducksworth on the topic of grit, she describes grit as a 

…[P]assion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Why Is It Important?

Dr. Pragya Agarwal, a behavioral scientist from the UK who has also spoken at TED conferences, wrote in a Forbes 2019 article saying: 

Grit is vital for success. In order to succeed, we need to have an unrelenting belief that our business and ideas will defy the statistics and become the success story that we have always strived to achieve. Grit is working not because we are forced to, but because deep down we have an inherent belief that the work that we are doing is completely worth it.

Returning back to Angela Lee Ducksworth’s Ted Talk, she began to psychologically research individuals, West Point Military Academy, the National Spelling Bee, rookie teachers, and companies who had salespeople. The purpose behind this research was to see who would find “success” in that area they belonged to. In other words, success for the West Point Military Academy was to see who would continue their military training and who would drop out, while success for the National Spelling Bee contestants was determining who would go on the furthest. For the rookie teachers, it was defined as who would still be a teacher by the end of the year – and which of those teachers would define who would be most effective in improving learning outcomes – while for the salespeople, who would earn the most money.

In her findings, Angela found that the underlying factors to those who succeeded was due to grit, and not due to other factors such as looks, health, IQ, and social intelligence. 

Grit is important because it is a factor that determines what makes an individual successful in whichever area they are attending to or seeking to fulfill.

Examples of Grit

People Who Displayed Grit

In understanding that grit plays a factor in determining what makes someone successful in accordance with the area that they are attending to or seeking to fulfill, then what are examples of individuals today that have received success that they were seeking for?

In today’s world, we have various examples of individuals who have achieved success in their areas they belong to.

J.K. Rowling

I’m sure by now many of us have heard the story of J.K. Rowling and her climb to success. A single mother, living off of welfare services in the UK, who came up with the story of Harry Potter while on a delayed train from Manchester to King’s Cross in London. Now, she is a celebrated author that has influenced the lives of people the world-over. However, her success lies not in the amount of money she earned – though money was a product of her creative work – but, rather, her success lies in the realm in which she belongs in – success as an author. 

Nonetheless, prior to becoming a successful author due to the results of the Harry Potter series, she had to first propel past her moments of hardship by showing grit.

When Rowling began to conceptualize the characters in Harry Potter, she was facing the overwhelming experience of her mother’s death on New Year’s Day of 1991, which she stated was the most traumatizing moment in her life. This was when she was 25 years old. From there, she would move to Portugal at the age of 26 and marry a man she met there. The marriage only lasted for 13 months, wherein she went through a miscarriage and later gave birth to her daughter, Jessica. With the marriage ended, she moved back to the UK with her daughter.

During those times, she continued to write ideas and stories about Harry Potter. However, it still was difficult for her as she began to live in a cramped apartment, jobless, and living off of welfare while raising her daughter. It was also during this time that she battled with thoughts of suicide. 

By the time she was around 30, while still struggling through life and circumstances, she would eventually send her manuscript of Harry Potter to publishers. However, her manuscript was rejected by many publishers. It wouldn’t be until she found a literary agent, Christopher Little, who would secure a deal with a young publishing company named Bloomsbury. In 1997, around the age of 32, Harry Potter was released to the public in the UK, and would go on to sell around 300,000 copies by March of 1999 (Rowling was around 33 at the time). Three days after Harry Potter was published in the UK, Rowling would eventually sell the book to American book publisher, Scholastic, for more than $100,000 USD. 

In regards to her success as an author, Rowling had to go through many trials of hardship. With the passing of her mother, her marital struggle, her life conditions as a single mother in the UK, the overwhelming mental battle that would haunt her during her time, and the number of rejections she faced before her book could even be published, it takes a significant amount of fortitude to combat and continue driving her forward to accomplish her desire.

J.K. Rowling was fixed on what she wanted to accomplish, and displayed an unchanging certainty during her difficult times. She displayed grit.

Kobe Bryant

As of writing this article, it is with great sadness that Kobe Bryant passed away recently on Sunday, January 26th, 2020, at the age of 41, due to a helicopter crash. It is also with great sadness that his daughter, Gianna, along with her basketball teammates and their parents, an assistant coach, and the pilot, passed away.

With a tragedy that affected the world over, Kobe, AKA The Black Mamba, will be remembered for many years to come. 

When we think of Kobe, we think of him as a successful person. Yet, what was he successful in? Prior to his winning an Oscar for his animated short, Dear Basketball, his success came as a professional basketball player. That is where he carved a name for himself and relentlessly pursued his path.

Kobe had a relentless work ethic. He would be on the court practicing during early hours. In high school, he would be on the court practicing from 5 AM to 7 AM. He was committed to his desire. 

This type of work ethic didn’t stop in high school. In a now-deleted Reddit post from 2013, there was a story of him that was told by the athletic trainer for Team USA, Robert. Luckily, you can read what was written on James Clear’s writing on deliberate practice. To share a few details, Kobe asked Robert to help him with some conditioning work at 4:15 AM. The team was scheduled to begin practice at 11 AM, but Kobe was already starting his workout 7 hours ahead! 

When Robert went back to begin training with the team, he noticed Kobe was shooting some baskets while his teammates were talking with other people. Robert went up to him and asked him what time he finished his training. To this, Kobe responded that he was just barely finishing! He had set a goal to make 800 shots. To top it all off, he would then begin his training with the team!

It’s clear to see why Kobe would eventually go on to win many awards in the NBA, such as 5 NBA championships, awarded 2 NBA Finals MVP, and 1 MVP during the regular season. Such unwavering tenacity for his passion clearly played a role in his success as an NBA legend.

However, Kobe had to also face hardships on his journey. He had to face a high-profile criminal case that would affect his personal life and professional life. His marriage would begin to struggle, while he would go on to lose his endorsements as well. News of what happened would tarnish his character and bring his reputation and basketball fame down. 

However, through it all, he would still go on with is personal work ethic and overcome the situation. With matters resolved, he and his wife would go on to fix their marriage, and he would still go on to advance forward with his NBA career.

Many of us may never have to experience what Kobe had to, but, due to the nature of grit he developed for himself, he was able to show tenacity and perseverance. 

Is Grit Necessary?

Grit isn’t the end all be all of characteristics that makes you successful in your area, but it plays a key role. It is a reminder of the determination you have created to show forth as a reminder for what you are fighting for. 

When stripped of everything you have, it is, at your core, what defines you. It is who you are; what you are. It is that purpose you hold clear in your mind’s eye that says you are going to accomplish this, and you aren’t taking no for an answer. 

Grit is perseverance for when the going gets tough. All of us will face hard times, and it may break us. We aren’t superhumans or machines, so it’s normal for us to find moments of failure. 

Yet, in understanding that grit is a fixed desire that is displayed as unchanging certainty during difficult times – our vision and goal – we then come to understand that in our moments of struggle, we do our best to push ourselves forward, even if it’s just by doing one small thing in the system that we’ve developed that helps us return to moving forward with our dreams and desires.

While people and circumstance may interfere with us, we as individuals are, in the end, our greatest detractor. Our minds determine whether we can accomplish something or not; whether we keep pushing forward or not.

In the words of Henry Ford:

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.”

Next Steps:

This is the first part of my two-part series in discussing Grit. In the next article, I’ll be discussing how you can develop grit.

In the meantime, what is one thing that you will do now that you have a better understanding of what grit is? Go ahead and tell me by sending me a message! I’d love to read what you have to say!

One of Your Fans,

Phil

The post What Is Grit? Why It Matters For Your Success appeared first on Phil Valer.

Tell me if this sounds familiar. It’s Saturday. It’s almost 3 PM. You find yourself sitting on your couch with the TV on, streaming your favorite show that you aren’t even watching because you have your phone out watching YouTube videos, playing some games, and checking out that DM you just got. Deep down, you keep on telling yourself that you got to do something, but you just keep waiting and waiting for that something to happen. You’re waiting for that spark to kick in and get yourself in gear.

Look, life just happens. We get ourselves stuck in a rut. We keep on spinning that proverbial wheel, hoping that something happens. Life begins to turn mundane, and we begin to wonder if there is anything better for us. Once you’re hit with that feeling of life incoherence, you watch time and life pass you by. You want to do something, but you’re just waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

You suddenly find yourself asking the big questions: why am I so lazy? Why don’t I want to do anything? Why does my life suck?

Look, you’re not lazy. You’re life doesn’t suck. You world just hit a roadblock that took you out of the game for a bit. All you just need are tools that can help you get back on the road again.

Choice Paralysis

Your life is filled with a terrible amount of choices that it leaves you drained – exhausted. You’re confronted with choice paralysis. What is choice paralysis? The inability to not make decisions due to the number of high amount of choices you can potentially make with no certainty of where you will be going.

Choice paralysis is everywhere. You know when you go to a restaurant for the first time (or thousandth) and you’re given the menu only to see that there are 40 items to choose from with no pictures to show you what you think you are getting? You tell your server you need another minute as you read through the entire menu, but you still aren’t sure what you are getting because there is no clear destination or result that can be seen from their descriptions. You’re sensing information overload.

It’s not your fault that life is filled with so many choices. The freedom to choose can also be our enslavement if we allow ourselves to be reacted upon. To free ourselves from the shackles of choice paralysis, we have to cut out choices in our lives. This will let us then create a roadmap that will allow us to see our destination that we are looking for.

There are 3 steps to eliminate choices and putting your life back to where you are wanting to go.

Step 1: Cleaning Simplification

Your environment, the things and the items that surround you on a daily basis on the outside, is a reflection of who you are on the inside. Pretty meta, right? This is a unique variation of the saying, “show me who your friends are and I will tell you the type of person you are.” The difference with this viewpoint, though, is not saying that this is determining your average income, lifestyle, or behavior. Instead, what this viewpoint is saying is that your mental coherence is on full display here.

Here’s what makes this even more interesting: when it comes to things of a mental nature, we may have a tendency to try to hide anything that may separate us from others in our circles. At work, someone comes up to you and says, “Hey! How’s it going?” Your immediate response comes out as “I’m good!” Ideally, we want to be good, but life throws us curveball after curveball. Swing and a miss. We somehow just can’t hit it out of the park or even land a hit on the ball, period. Yet, we don’t want others to see our hard moments. Therefore, we prefer to keep things to ourselves. We want to only show the best parts of our lives – just look at any social media influencer and you’ll get the picture.

To solve this, you will want to simplify the area around you. If you think I’m suddenly preaching “MINIMALISM!” no, I’m not advocating that you become a minimalist. There are people who thrive in a frenzied environment, while there are others who are unable to function properly in a clustered environment. My recommendation is for those who can’t function properly in a clustered environment.

Look at it like this. You’re hungry and decide to eat at a restaurant that serves amazing food. As soon as you sit at your table, you find that the table is a mess and the ground around you is dirty. You’re expecting your server to wipe the table down and sweep up the mess, but no response. Finally, the food is served, but you can’t fully appreciate the taste because all your attention and focus is going towards how filthy your area is. End result: negative recommendation and you probably won’t go back to that restaurant.

Your surrounding is the same as that restaurant table. Before you can fully enjoy what’s ahead, your area first needs to be cleaned up.  

Start basic. Go to your desk. Is it piled with books, paperwork, keys, products, drinks? All that noise is just distracting you. Spend time removing everything that doesn’t belong on that desk. Picture in your head what the ideal desk that you will be using looks like. This will then give you an idea as to what should be on the desk and what should be put away.

After cleaning up your desk, put all the trash in the trash! If it’s other items, put them away in a drawer. Keep them out of sight.

Next, repeat the same process for your other surrounding areas. Again, visualize the ideal look and function that the item or area around you will be.

Step 2: Choice Simplification Into 2-3 Tasks

I remember watching a video that showed a picture of a tree and a small seed pod that was helicoptering down. It was describing that from small and simple things, great things come to pass. That phrase has always stood out to me. I started to think that if we can break things down into small steps, then the big things will come to pass! That’s what we are doing here now.

With your area cleaned up, it’s time to minimize your choices. Get that pen and paper out, your computer, or your phone, and write down all the things you want or have to do. These are your choices. If you have more than three, then circle the ones that you really want to (or have to) do. They all might be important to you, but you need to separate them for now.

After you’ve circled them, it’s time to ask yourself this: out of all these that are circled, which one would help me move forward with what I want to (or have to) do? You can only choose 2 or 3 items.

Now, it’s time to prioritize them. Number the ones you have chosen (with 1 being most important).

With your choices broken down to just 2-3 options, as well as knowing the priority level of importance for each option, now you can more effectively break down the task in front of you into small steps!

How you break these steps down is up to you, but I’ll give you an example. Let’s say that I have a 3,000-word article that I need to write within 7 days. That’s a ton of writing to do within a week, but I can do it. Here’s how I would break it down:

• Research: Spend 1-hour researching the topic. (Day 1)
• Sources: Choose 3-5 sources. (Day 1)
• Read: Spend 30 minutes reading and writing notes. (Start day 1. Spend 3 days)
• Write: Write 500 words in 30 minutes. (Start day 1. Spend 6 days)
• Revision: Spend 1-hour revising the article written. (Day 7)
• Publish the article. (Day 7)

That’s just one method. You can create your own method. The spirit of this list is to show how creating small, actionable steps leads to the completing of the bigger thing at hand!

Step 3: Simplify Time and Place to Do It

Now that you’ve learned to clean your surroundings and simplify your choices, you’re making big momentum. However, your task will never be completed if you haven’t set a time to do it.

Setting a time to work on one of your tasks will be one of the deciding factors that determines whether you complete your task or not. In James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, he describes a research experiment that took place in Great Britain during 2001. Three groups were formed. Group A was asked to keep track of how often they would exercise. Group B was asked to read motivational articles about exercising and health while also keeping track of their exercises. Lastly, group C received the same information that group B received, and they were also asked to set up a plan for when and where they would exercise.

According to the results, Clear says the following: 

In the first and second groups, 35 to 38 percent of people exercised at least once per week…. But 91 percent of the third group exercised at least once per week – more than double the normal rate.

That percentage spike is huge! It might sound too good to be true, and reading it almost sounds like those crazy click bait titles from the past that would say “this one trick will make you have eternal youth! And doctors hate it!” Yet, it all goes back to the idea that through small and simple things, great things come to pass.

As Clear outlined it, all you have to do is just add on to the task shown in step 2.

I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].

So, if I were to write it according to my style of creating tasks, it would be as follows:

• Research: I will RESEARCH for one hour at 7 PM at MY DESK. (Day 1)
• Sources: I will CHOOSE 3-5 SOURCES at 7:30 PM at MY DESK. (Day 1)
• Read: I will READ AND WRITE NOTES for 30 minutes at 8 PM at MY DESK. (Start day 1. Spend 3 days)
• …and so on…

My method may be slightly altered than Clear’s method, but the spirit of it still is there. I have written my BEHAVIOR, the TIME, and the LOCATION. I find that it works well for me, and you will find the style that works best for you. But, above everything else, keep it simple!

Wrapping Up

Look, you’re not lazy. You are in a world filled with a bunch of noise and things trying to catch your attention. Maybe you’re thinking too far into the future or thinking too much in the past, and just trying to make sense of it all. That’s normal. I believe we live in one of the best times in human history – and it will continue to become even better. This also means that we are flooded with choices to make, and sometimes it feels you must make them at lightning-quick speed or else you will be behind.

The reality, however, is that we need to take a step back and refocus ourselves. We do this by reducing the amount of choices we have. To do that, we need to remember the three steps: 

1. Simplify your area – clean up your surrounding areas by visualizing what they are to you; 
2. Simplify choices to 2-3 tasks – write down your choices, highlight 2-3 of them and prioritize them; and 
3. Simplify time and place – follow-up with your tasks by writing down when [TIME] and where [LOCATION] you will get your task done.

Call-to-Action

Now that you have some tools at your disposal to remove choice paralysis, what are you going to do now? 

I invite you to spend two weeks using this formula. You’ll gain greater clarity as well as a sense of freedom from all the choice-noise surrounding you.

Send me a message with your results! I would love to see what you were able to accomplish that is significant for you!

One of Your Fans,

Phil

The post Choice Paralysis (3 Steps to Reduce Choices) appeared first on Phil Valer.