Grit is long-term intense effort, and your grit is far more important than results. You can't always control results, but you can control your grit. The results of tests, games, tryouts, productions, etc. will not have the same impact on you as your grit required to achieve them. When you have grit, you can be content with yourself because you gave your best over a long period of time. Therefore, we know that GRIT is greater than Results.
Don’t give up if you know that something is humanly possible. Results ARE important, but grit is far more important, and it WILL produce results in the long run. Even though grit will not always lead to the results you want, it is a life-altering quality because you are embodying self-efficacy. When we are focused solely on results over the process (your desire to score a certain number of points in a game, earning a minimum test score, getting into a specific college, etc.), you may stunt your growth. You need to focus on your methods, your effort, and your mindset. By doing that, your results will usually follow. Focusing on a certain number of points might prevent you from developing your court-vision. Focusing on a minimum test score might lead to a lack of thorough understanding and could even lead to the temptation to cheat. Focusing on getting into a specific college is out of your hands since very competitive colleges do not reveal the “secret” to getting into their school. Therefore, you’d be placing your energy into something wildly out of your control. Any technique that provides short term gains without regard for an educable process, might derail your growth. You need to focus on the long-term process, and you will develop WHILE you also achieve many of your desired results. Your ability to focus on “the process” for long periods of time is going to pay off. (Keep in mind that breaks during that long-term effort are important for your mental and emotional well-being.) If you are unfamiliar with Angela Duckworth’s (UPenn) research on grit, Angela Duckworth: The Power of Grit (Note: The phrase, “EFFORT> results!” is also good but short-term effort is NOT laudable. For example, a student who applies maximum effort while taking a test is FAR from praiseworthy if he didn’t invest the appropriate time and energy into preparing for that test. That fleeting moment of intense effort is not effective or acceptable.)
Don’t give up if you know that something is humanly possible. Results ARE important, but grit is far more important, and it WILL produce results in the long run. Even though grit will not always lead to the results you want, it is a life-altering quality because you are embodying self-efficacy. When we are focused solely on results over the process (your desire to score a certain number of points in a game, earning a minimum test score, getting into a specific college, etc.), you may stunt your growth. You need to focus on your methods, your effort, and your mindset. By doing that, your results will usually follow. Focusing on a certain number of points might prevent you from developing your court-vision. Focusing on a minimum test score might lead to a lack of thorough understanding and could even lead to the temptation to cheat. Focusing on getting into a specific college is out of your hands since very competitive colleges do not reveal the “secret” to getting into their school. Therefore, you’d be placing your energy into something wildly out of your control. Any technique that provides short term gains without regard for an educable process, might derail your growth. You need to focus on the long-term process, and you will develop WHILE you also achieve many of your desired results. Your ability to focus on “the process” for long periods of time is going to pay off. (Keep in mind that breaks during that long-term effort are important for your mental and emotional well-being.) If you are unfamiliar with Angela Duckworth’s (UPenn) research on grit, Angela Duckworth: The Power of Grit (Note: The phrase, “EFFORT> results!” is also good but short-term effort is NOT laudable. For example, a student who applies maximum effort while taking a test is FAR from praiseworthy if he didn’t invest the appropriate time and energy into preparing for that test. That fleeting moment of intense effort is not effective or acceptable.)
- Become unstoppable - especially when life is most difficult. Brian Tracy: Becoming Unstoppable
- IMPORTANT one-minute post-game Jonathan India: Grit After a Grand Slam, after a grand slam.
- Seton Hall Prep community members can be reminded of who we are. Bedros Maldjian ’22: Seton Hall Prep
- Novak Djokovic exemplifies how Novak Djokovic: Giving Your Best.
- Don’t quit if something is possible. Be the Iguana: Don’t Give Up
- Cooper Kupp: Your work rate provides contentment far more than results. (Cooper Kupp: Effort and Inner Peace.)
- Giving your best will provide you with life's satisfaction. Nick Saban: Satisfaction in Your Effort
- Small improvements over a long period of time will result in incredible growth. James Clear: Small Habits, Lasting Growth on Atomic Habits. The book is excellent.
- This Kobe Bryant Kobe Bryant: A Perspective on Failure is just as powerful.
- FAILURE can teach you far more than apparent success. JK Rowling describes her experiences with failure during her Harvard Commencement Address. (J.K. Rowling: Learning from Failure, but listening to the whole video is worthwhile.)
- Kobe Bryant describes his Kobe Bryant: Handling Disappointment.
- Denzel Washington Denzel Washington: Failure and Effort. It touches on failure and effort.
- Pushing your limits will require you to get out of your comfort zone. Doing so will lead to failures along the way. Your approach to those failures is going to determine your eventual outcome. (Adam Grant article.)
- Understand that growth, improvement, development, and learning are not linear pathways. Some experts say that it is more circular than it is even jagged. Cognitive scientists, Gray and Lindstedt point out that there is quite often a regression right before a great leap forward. An incredible analogy is the bicycle tire. You will be up, down, on the way up, on the way down, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes SEEMINGLY moving backward, but if you have just one calorie of energy, the BIKE is still moving forward.
- Listen to this very powerful podcast that encourages us to learn from failures and to use them as tools for improvement. (Podcast: How to Learn from Your Mistakes.)
- LEARN from your mistakes, disappointments, and failures. Learning from them is going to be invaluable for your growth. See this short presentation: HZF Reacting to Mistakes Failure and Disappointment.pptx Failures and mistakes will happen, and you need to find pride in your grit, especially when results are less than what you expect. (Failure is the lack of achieving your goal.) Of course, failure can sting because we want to feel competent, but failure can enable us to see opportunity and growth. People often look at failure as an attack on their ego, but they need to subdue their ego and separate themselves from the issue to see it objectively. When you LEARN from your mistakes and failures, you are making yourself resilient, BUT that is only part of the benefit; you are making yourself better as you gain knowledge from those mistakes and failures. Research shows that experts are better at handling failures because they are obsessed with learning about their field and failures shed light on something new. Therefore, their failures are educational moments. Rookies are vulnerable, however. They begin a new field with trepidation, and as soon as they meet their first failure, they are convinced that the new field is not for them. They convince themselves that they were right – that they made a mistake by entering the new field. As you continue to grow from mistakes and experiences, you need to be patient with yourself and have full respect for what you are doing and who you are becoming. You are on a journey, and you need to try to love that person. You never truly fail if you learn something. So simple: It is impossible to become resilient if you DO NOT FAIL since you cannot learn to deal with challenges or disappointment. We are all impressed by people who stumble/fail, but continue to get up and succeed, but determination is only part of the equation – the LEARNING process from failing is critical. NOTE: You will encounter failures that are so incredibly unpredictable that learning from them is almost impossible. In those situations, you need to figure out how that failure will strengthen you since other unpredictable failures WILL happen in your life. You need to use those moments to figure out how to come to terms with inevitable failures and misfortune. Just as important to understand is that research indicates that success is blinding. It covers up flaws (Example: winning a game in which you played poorly).
- See the Important visual about successful people, but there is a Seton Hall Prep version that is better. Joseph Chie's artwork details Artwork of Michael Jordan and his reaction to failure – one as being defeated by it, and one is using it as a tool for success. Joseph’s artwork has a theme similar to Michael Jordan: Failure and Success
- We all have flaws and cracks. Can you use Kintsugi: Finding Value in Our Cracks, the ancient Japanese restorative art, as a metaphor for your own life?
- “A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.” Epictetus
- "Success is a journey, not a destination." Ben Sweetland
- "Hard work may not guarantee success, but it always ensures progress. And progress is the key - you have to keep moving forward." Sir Alex Ferguson
- “Do not fear failure. It is not failure, but low aim, that is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.” Bruce Lee
- "Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts." Winston Churchill
- “Get back up when you fail. Celebrate behaving like a human.” Marcus Aurelius
- “Life is a struggle and the potential for failure is ever present, but those who live in fear of failure, or hardship, or embarrassment will never achieve their potential. Without pushing your limits, without occasionally sliding down the rope headfirst, without daring greatly, you will never know what is truly possible in your life.” William H. McRaven
- “Every obstacle is an opportunity to test your commitment to your own excellence. Success will depend on the choice you make in those more challenging moments, when it's easier to regress; to give up on what you know is the right choice. These are the moments that define us.” Mark Bennett
- “The true person is revealed in difficult times.” Epictetus
- “Falling down is not failure. Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen.” Socrates
- “You cannot wish for both a strong character and an easy life. The price of each is the other.” Ancient proverb
- "A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new." Albert Einstein
- “Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.” Mary Tyler Moore
- “You either win or you learn.” Jalen Hurts
- “Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.” Alexis Carrell
Action Questions:
- What motivates me to persevere through difficult times, even when the results may not be immediate?
- How can I maintain focus on the process and long-term effort rather than solely on achieving specific results?
- Failures, mistakes, and disappointments are inevitable. What will I do with these to develop, learn, and improve from them?