How I Found My Grit
Ever since Angela Duckworth's book Grit came out, I’ve avoided it.
Everything I’d read about gritty people didn’t describe me, and I didn't want to read the book only to have it confirm my suspicion that I wasn’t gritty. Nobody wants to read a whole book only to confirm they have a character flaw.
Since graduating from college, I've bounced from one role to the next. According to podcasts and LinkedIn posts, that’s a sure sign of someone who doesn’t have git. Over the years, I’ve:
Established and grew CX teams in SaaS startups
Worked as a sales analyst in solar
Spent a year as a barista and yoga teacher
Helped grow a natural foods startup from square one to viral success
Guided groups on weekend-long mountaineering and canyoneering trips
From the outside, this might look like aimlessness or a lack of follow-through. I assumed grit was a grin-and-bear-it quality that enabled people to stick with something no matter how much it sucked, and I didn’t have it.
I’m someone who experiments. I try things on for size. When something no longer fits, and I’ve learned all I can, I move on. The discernment to walk away and try something else is also a strength.
Still, I judged and doubted myself.
"If grit is a superpower and predictor of success, does it mean I'm at a disadvantage for not having it? And does that mean I'll never be as successful as someone who does?"
Then I’d remind myself of the had things I’ve done.
I trained for a whole year to climb El Capitan. I summited an 18,000ft volcano. I biked 200 miles in one day. I read the entirety of Thinking, Fast and Slow (that’s an economist joke). These accomplishments required dedication, planning, and consistent effort. So am I gritty or not?
For the last ten years, I feared the answer was no. At least not when it came to my professional life.
Then I saw Grit was available for free on Spotify, so I gave it a listen. I was surprised to find that my understanding of grit was incomplete and simplistic. It lacked nuance. And it turns out I do, in fact, have the capacity to be really fucking gritty.
Grit Is Complex
You can’t simply choose to be gritty about whatever you want. Duckworth explains that grit isn't a one-dimensional quality, and it’s not a fixed trait or a switch you can flip.
There are four elements that make grit possible. Seeing myself in the context of these four elements helped me understand when and how I am gritty.
1 - Interest
To be gritty about something, we need to be genuinely interested. We find it to be meaningful and worthwhile. The process of engaging with it and doing more of it is intrinsically rewarding, resulting in deep personal satisfaction.
It's not necessarily fun. Instead, it aligns with us on a more fundamental level. It matches our personal values and belief systems, and our entire being comes alive when we do it.
2 - Practice
Gritty people practice to improve, and not just any kind of repetitive practice will do.
Deliberate practice takes a systemic approach to hone one's skill through focus, feedback, and the intention to improve. It involves setting goals and stretching beyond comfort.
For me, rock climbing is one example. I’ve been climbing for years, and I don’t do the same thing every time I go to the climbing gym. I train with an objective in mind. Sometimes, it’s as dull as hanging off little ledges a few seconds at a time to train finger strength.
Building deliberate systems to practice can be a challenge, but the practice itself is always rewarding. It doesn't feel like drudgery because it’s something I care about.
3 - Purpose
Over time, people who are gritty about a craft or vision come to see it as something greater than themselves. Their work is not just about personal success. It becomes a calling—a purpose.
Duckworth calls this prosocial motivation, the belief that our work serves others. When we lose momentum, this sense of service or mission helps us through difficult times.
When our work resonates with who we are at our core and we know it positively contributes to the world, it becomes much harder to walk away. Devoting our career to something else would feel empty and insubstantial. It would be a denial of our values.
4 - Hope
Hope takes many forms. One of its most common forms is when fear masquerades as hope. We fear something will happen, so we hope for the opposite of what we fear.
Fear-hope isn’t what Duckworth is talking about. The hope of grit is a stubborn kind of optimism. It's the understanding that failure is just part of the process, and the belief that one can continue to improve and progress, even after multiple setbacks and dead ends.
This hope acknowledges that we likely won't get it right the first time, and that's ok.
I Have Grit, and You Probably DoToo
According to Duckworth’s research, grit is not a fixed personality trait we're born with. It’s something that’s possible when all the right elements are in place: genuine interest in the work, deliberate systems of practice, and a calling that matches our values, all supported by a hopeful mindset that just. Keeps. On. Going.
Looking at it this way, I needed to bounce around from job to job.
I needed to explore different industries and roles, participating in movements like B-Corp, and immersing myself in experiences like yoga teacher training. I needed the lessons of participating in a men's group for eight years. I had to learn how rewarding it is to help someone work with fear as they rappel over the edge of a 100-foot waterfall.
These experiences, these experiments, allowed me to get clear about the work that pulls at me. It’s work that leaves me feeling alive and energized at the end of a long workday.
Without this clarity, I would not have left everything behind to move fully into coaching.
Some of us know our calling from the start. The rest of us get to experiment, learn, and walk away enough times to discover the thing worth sticking with.
We eventually face the courageous decision to devote ourselves to that thing. When we do, grit comes naturally.
