Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth has been on my list for quite some time. I first heard about it when I would do lengthy walks while listening to podcasts on the Missouri River during my free time in Iowa. This book has profound nuggets sprinkled throughout but, I want to highlight 6 key lessons that I’m integrating into my daily life. Who doesn’t want to be a grittier person and conquer adversity?
What is grit you might ask? Angela defines grit as the following: “Grit is the passion and perseverance for long-term goals. Grit isn’t talent. Grit isn’t luck. Grit isn’t how intensely, for the moment, you want something. Instead, grit is about having what some researchers call an “ultimate concern” – a goal you care about so much that it organizes and gives meaning to almost everything you do. And grit is holding steadfast to that goal. Even when you fall down. Even when you screw up. Even when progress toward that goal is halting or slow.” Now that we have a solid foundation of what grit is all about, let’s dive into some of the biggest takeaways for me:
1) Nuance & Interest: The Keys to Longevity
It takes time to develop anything noteworthy. This could be your career, gains from strength training, or a cultivated life of purpose. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he eludes to the fact that experts don’t become world class in their fields overnight. He estimates that it takes up to 10,000 hours to reach these levels of achievement within a given field. In order to maintain the longevity necessary to become world class, grit has been identified as one of the most important facets. We all have met people who are the 30 year grizzled vet in their area of expertise. How can we reach this same depth of knowledge within our own chosen field?
Interest – curiosity in life provides the backbone for exploration. First, we should dive into something that awakens our curiosity and peaks our interest. As in the books subtitle, “The Power of Passion and Perseverance” – these characteristics are what propel us to new frontiers within a skill or calling. Motivation and interest comes in waves, oscillating between peaks and valleys. How can we handle the deep pits of motivation if we are not interested in the given specialty? Interest is the prerequisite for grit. What peaks your interest?
A True Test of Grit
For me, that’s climbing. As I approach the 1 Year mark of quarantine within Southern California, it has been a wonderful test of my passion to improve within the sport. I’ve faced many challenges while being confined within a 400 sq. ft. studio with very limited equipment and no training partners. These constraints have forced me to double down and dig deeper.
Nuance – I have delved into the nitty gritty cracks of training, movement drills, and mental framing within climbing. In life we should all strive for nuance whether that is within our conversations, morals, or passions! Angela gives multiple examples of savvy veterans in their fields who have fallen deeper and deeper within their specialties. A painter’s analogy that was referenced within Grit includes the idea of the morning sky. An artist will see the morning sky full of complexity and nuance where as others may see gray or blue. Dig deeper into your art as they are ever evolving and rich. For me, this includes training methods/programming, developing a growth mindset, and refining the art of communication to share this with others! When you wake up, what’s something you look forward to?
2) Better Practice
A key pillar of being gritty is deliberate practice. This work has been a hot topic within sports science in the past couple of years but let me hammer home the primary components of deliberate practice. As quoted from Grit, the basic requirements of deliberate practice includes:
- A clearly defined stretch goal
- Full concentration and effort
- Immediate and informative feedback
- Repetition with reflection and refinement
As mentioned above, deliberate practice is an iterative process. It is the hard and taxing efforts that leads to mastery. As for climbing, this may include footwork drills, body tension exercises, mobility, etc. It’s not necessarily fun but, there are huge dividends for those that embrace the struggle. Grit is not just about the quantity of time on task but also quality of time. A useful mantra that you could implement in your daily life is, “better time on task”.
Weighting Micro Feet
In the spirit of deliberate practice, I have been trying to implement a rule called, “One Hard Task.” The concept is for each session or day at the crag, I want there to be implementation of one task or focus that I find really difficult. After all, if it’s extremely difficult for me to do then it must be a weakness. Some examples I have used the past couple of months include focusing on skill drills during my warm-ups out at the cliff, finishing a fingerboard session with core, and diving into mobility on a daily basis. What are some difficult practices that you would like to implement within your climbing or life?
3) “Effort Counts Twice”
Effort – A word that keeps being repeated when discussing deliberate practice. One of the most powerful lessons I have absorbed through Grit, is that “effort counts twice.” Angela perfectly lays this out within the graphic below:
I feel that we all look at talent as this prerequisite for success within a chosen field. It does lend a slight advantage in the short-term however, it is just one piece of the puzzle. What really lends itself to improvement is effort. As the graphic illustrates, skill is a function of talent and effort. Once this skill is acquired, achievement will be had with continuous effort and application of this skill.
In the realm of climbing, an example could be your ability to climb steep, overhung terrain. In the beginning, you’ll gain skill at this technique through learning the tricks of the trade (heel-toe cams, twisty hips, weighting feet properly, etc). As in learning any new skill there is a high degree of effort involved. Once a sufficient level of skill is obtained, applying this skill to your chosen project or route will yield results. You’ll progress gaining new high points but the elusive send will not present itself with ease. Once again, this further emphasizes that effort is a function of achievement. To bring it full circle, sustained effort (longevity) with deliberate practice will yield results. “Effort counts twice” should be a mantra we all remind ourselves of a bit more.
4) Bricklayers & Purpose
Purpose is a fundamental driver in developing a gritty personality. Purpose allows us to feel that our hard fought efforts are not in vain. A key component of motivation is the feeling that we are helping others or doing good outside of ourselves. I’ll give you my favorite example from the book. In Grit, a bricklayers analogy is laid out, “Three bricklayers are asked: “What are you doing?”
The first says, “I am laying bricks.”
The second says, “I am building a church.”
And the third says, “I am building the house of God.”
The first bricklayer has a job. The second has a career. The third has a calling.”
This is brilliant. It’s a perfect illustration of how our mental framing of situations dictates whether we feel this is something mundane or extraordinary. It’s the cliché saying of, “my work makes the world a better place.” How can we apply this sense of a calling to climbing? How can we justify climbing, what some may consider a selfish pursuit, as something worthwhile for the countless hours we dedicate to the sport?
Climbing is a magical thing. As mentioned earlier, we need to broaden the scope and look at more within the sport than pushing grades or sending hard routes. Climbing provides a community that can yield life-long relationships, vast exposure in morals, and allows for grounding out in nature. In my own climbing, I would be lying if I didn’t want to level up and reach the next arbitrary pursuit. However, I want to use climbing as a medium to make the world a better place.
I know this sounds like the ultimate cliché but, hear me out. As I am on the pursuit to become a dedicated climbing coach, I feel this is a wonderful medium to have impact on youth and adults alike. I don’t want to only teach movement drills, hangboard protocols, or strength exercises. I want something more. I want the impact I make on my athletes to go beyond the gym/crag. I want to help influence others to be the best possible version of themselves in all facets of life. Climbing can be a great teacher. Why not share this gift?
5) Hope – THe light in the dark
A building block of grit is the ability to maintain hope and endure when the going gets tough. There are plenty of clichés including one of my personal faves – “when the going get tough, the tough get going!” Hope can be expressed in moments of failure, complex learning, or the realization that your painstaking work/practice isn’t showing immediate results. This all circles back to the concept of Growth Mindset. This is a term coined by Carol Dweck. Her book, “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success”, is wonderful and I highly recommend you check it out. We will dive into how the growth mindset can provide hope even in the darkest of times.
“Hope is like the sun. If you only believe in it when you can see it, you’ll never make it through the night.”
Leia Organa, Star Wars Episode VIII – Last Jedi
Paragons of Grit learn to love adversity. Grit is a kind of hope that rests upon the expectations that our own efforts can improve our future. Mindset is just like a physical muscle, it needs to be consistently trained to stay sharp. Once we adopt a growth mindset, we are able to look at setbacks and challenges in a new light. Practicing optimistic self-talk and reframing failure as a learning experience can be powerful tools within the toolbox of mental training. Finally, this leads to cultivation of perseverance and resiliency over adversity. Who doesn’t want to solve life’s complex problems? If you’re new to the growth mindset, below is a helpful infographic that illustrates the self-talk associated with each outlook:
This doesn’t mean that you should absolutely disregard setbacks. Adversity can be discouraging. Being gritty is acknowledging that setbacks don’t discourage you for long. You get back in the ring. There are always going to be times in your pursuits where you may want to take the easy road. It’s critical to always have someone who tells you to keep going. We can all use this hope accountability.
One may ask, “How can I integrate the power of hope into my climbing?” Can you use optimistic self-talk when you’re pissed after having punted off your project for the 20th time? Embrace the challenge and instead of saying, “I suck” insert thoughts of, “wow – I learned a lot from that burn.” Could you do away with the limiting beliefs that you have regarding your ability? How can you support friends or family with a growth mindset? The applicability to climbing and life using these concepts is endless. Invest in yourself and nurture a growth mindset.
6) Culture and Grit
As previously mentioned, we can all use a little hope accountability. We are communal beings who seek interactions with others to discuss, learn, and feel a connection beyond words. In Grit, a simple but powerful message in regards to connection is, “If you want to be grittier, find a gritty culture and join it. If you’re a leader, and you want the people in your organization to be grittier, create a gritty culture.”
This sparked thoughts of a theory I heard from Naval Ravikant on a Tim Ferriss Show podcast. Naval referenced an idea within zoology called the “5 Chimps Theory.” It states that in zoology you can predict the mood and behavior of one chimp by observing the five chimps they hang out with the most. In short, you are the average of the five people you most associate yourself with. Stop. Take a moment to check-in. Are you happy with your five? Your community has a profound effect on your actions.
In climbing, this correlates to your training group, various partners, or even the folks you chat up within the sport. Are your partners pushing you to give that extra burn at the end of the day? Do your partners keep you accountable to do the deliberate practice to improve your skill? What is the mindset of your training partners or friends as you come down from a failed attempt on the project? Take stock of these moments, whether you are aware of it or not, these will have an effect on you. If looking to change the answers to these questions, create the gritty culture you have always dreamed of. Push friends to their limit, believe in partners more than they believe in themselves, and create a fun atmosphere for everyone to share our favorite sport.
I really can’t do the book justice but I can help make some connections to the world of climbing. Pick yourself up a copy and get after it, you may find some other takeaways that stand out to you.
As always – Much Love,
Kyle
