Grit and Failure
New research shows the top predictor of success is not intelligence, money or birth order. It’s grit. Angela Duckworth, who’s leading this research, defines grit as “Defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals”. She has a compelling TED Talk that I encourage you to watch. Before you run off to listen to Dr. Duckworth consider this…
- If grit is a key predictor of success
- Grit requires perseverance, which is typically witnessed AFTER failure
- This implies that failure is a key component to success.
Stop here a moment. Failure is a key component to success. To be more precise, lots of failure is a key component to success.
I don’t know about you but I don’t personally want this to be true. I want success to be determined by my intelligence, charming personality and magnificent good looks. 😉 However, as I look at the success I have achieved they’ve all come from determined efforts through failure – sometimes miserable failure. That’s why I’m here writing this morning and probably why you’re reading – to learn from mistakes, mine and others. Success most often rises, like the Phoenix, from the ashes of failure.
Do you have grit? Do you have the capacity to fail repeatedly and come back for more? Sadly, most of us choose an easier course. We chose to stay within our comfort zone, where we rarely fail or to move on quickly after a failure, towards something easier. Neither choice improves your situation or allows you to use the hard-earned lessons of failure. However, this is a question only you can answer and you have an opportunity to answer it again each day.
Questions
- Today, will you soldier through adversity and failure?
- Today, will you learn from yesterday’s mistakes or succumb to them?
- Today, will you have enough grit to succeed?