Awhile back, I listened to an episode of the Psychology Podcast with Dr. Scott Barry Kauffman. The guest was Dr. Angela Duckworth, the author of a good book called Grit. The podcast was so interesting I bought her book, loved it, and I have been recommending it to my clients.
When I was getting my doctoral degree at the University of Texas at Dallas, I recognized that the one thing that got me through was perserverance. I just had to keep going at it. I was also fortunate to have a father that paved the way for me, having his own doctoral degree from Florida State University. He believed in me and I naturally believed in myself. I wanted to teach at a university someday, and just considered a PhD to be something I had to get. I did and I was a teacher at UT Dallas for several years.
There was also a quote I read over and over again in my undergraduate Electromagetics class. It was Lao Tzu, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Emag was hard, but I got an A. Again, it was perseverance and a natural belief that the path would take me there, that told me I could walk down so many paths of success if I just took the steps in those directions.
Dr. Duckworth really nails this whole how-to-be-successful idea in her book. She also has a powerful TED talk that is available here.
I won’t summarize the whole book, but here are some takeaways for you:
- Becoming successful is not about talent and having natural abilities, it is about showing up and doing the work.
- Highly successful folks have a ferocious determination and are resilient and hardworking. They also know what they want and follow their passion.
- Grit is a combination of that passion and perseverance.
One more thing. Years ago I read a wonderful book called The Road Less Traveled by Dr. M. Scott Peck. He has a nice chapter on problem-solving. Peck shares a story of being successful at becoming a medical doctor, but yet failed to be able to fix mechanical things like a lawnmower. Telling this to his neighbor, his neighbor shot back at him, “That’s because you don’t take the time [to learn].” Yup. That has always stuck with me. If I want to learn something, I just need to put in the time. I know we all have limitations and we need to recognize that, but many of our limitations are self-fulfilling prophecies.
If we take the time, believe in ourselves, if we follow our passion and we persevere, we can be successful in just about whatever we put our minds to. Grit is it. Add it to your vocabulary. It’s a good word. And why not read Dr. Duckwork or check out her talks.
Booyah! 🙂
