Years ago, I saw an interview with someone who was or had been in Special Forces in the military. He talked about how hard training was and that he got through training by telling himself he was just going to stay until lunch. After lunch, he would mentally commit to the next hour or two or to making it to dinner.
This completely changed my concept of such people and became a cornerstone for getting me through a lot of challenges in the last roughly decade.
People who do hard things aren't simply awesome at everything or blessed to come from the right family, have the right education etc. Some of them are getting through hard things by managing their emotions and psychology with some of the same tricks used by political prisoners being subjected to torture and trying to not break.
Great anecdote. I try to apply this philosophy to endurance training like running (just get to the next mile marker), swimming (just do the next lap) or biking (just do another minute) but it's really hard. I'm awed by the special forces guys (or the author of the post) who apply that kind of thinking to long periods of time.
It does seem to me though that for creative thinking or solving really tough engineering problems that rest and laziness can actually be productive. So I don't know how to reconcile that with "training my grit muscle". It seems both are important.
I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, and every day for 6 months had to tell myself "Just one more peak" or "Just make it to the next shelter", and once I made it to that peak or shelter, would stop for water and a snack and then keep hiking, again telling myself "Just one more". Do that about a thousand times and before you know it, you're in Maine!
I try to use a similar strategy of getting myself to train: I should go there and get dressed and if I still don't feel like it I can go skip and go home. So far I have only skipped it once, and that was after I trained for 20 min.
It's also perfectly applicable for when you should work on a project but it's hard to get started. Just force yourself the first 10-15min and then you can stop. It's almost always the case that you will continue after the initial struggle.
I want to highlight your comment. I don't necessarily think there is a ton wrong with this blog post, and major kudos to the author for his success. I would just like to point out that trying to transfer these techniques into 90+% of the rest of the population would probably not result in their success.
I'll use myself as an example. I've heard the bromides of "Get out of your comfort zone" and "push through", yada yada, many times. And I indeed have gotten out of my comfort zone many times. But I've found that often times I have extreme stress reactions, sometimes bordering on panic, when I get too outside my comfort zone. I find this especially the case where I take too much on at once - I have a poor ability to prioritize and just "let things go" that aren't important. I wish this weren't the case, but after many cases of trial and error I've found this is how I am. It's not that I'm not capable of growth and change, but I'm quite positive what has worked for this guy will most definitely not work for me.
In general, be very careful of following any successful person's advice on how they became successful. There were a whole lot of other circumstances, innate gifts, and a lot of luck for any specific person that won't transfer broadly.
As a counterexample, every time I have valiantly tried to use Grit to face a challenge that's uncomfortable and hard for me naturally I have failed miserably. In all occasions, I would have been better just quitting the challenge or doing it in a different way that didn't require as much grit.
Yes, you can say that I just wasn't "gritty" enough, but that's the same as saying that everyone who injures themselves in exercise wasn't "careful" enough. You're redefining "careful" in order for your theory to be right. Sometimes bad outcomes happen even when you do everything you can.
My goal here is not only to discourage you from trying hard to achieve your goals (that's a goal, of course). The main thing here is to get ready for life to kick you in the face no matter how much grit you have, and sometimes, precisely for having a lot of grit (no, I won't go into details).
The most important skill isn't grit, it's the wisdom to decide when applying grit is worth it. And no, I don't know how you train this or even if it is trainable. It might be just luck.
Instead of relying on grit, stick to what you do best and don't try to use grit as a replacement for talent or other qualities. If someone is naturally better than you, in a competition they'll just get grittier than their baseline and eclipse you.
This is anecdotal but so is the linked article. For any aphorism there is an equally valid and opposite aphorism.
Devil's advocate - there is also value in embracing laziness and looking for ways to minimize effort. I train a muscle to look for easier, cheaper alternatives.
I loathe effort so much that even a banal day to day activity like folding clothes upsets me. I switched to a 'bin' system that allows me to sort a load of laundry into bins in a few minutes.
I've perfected several 'one pan/pot' type recipes. A rare and particularly sophisticated meal might use two pieces of cookware. Oh and ask me about nutrition bars. At least one meal a day is in bar form.
Anything non-perishable I might need is shipped from amazon. For perishables, I shop at a store down the street like I'm robbing a bank. In and out in a few minutes.
Effort feels wrong. Like I'm missing something. I can still do it but my mind is brute forcing the ways to make it easier next time.
I'm completely sick of hearing about "grit" in any context not involving corn (I'll give John Wayne a special dispensation). Can we move on to the next pop-psych concept that explains everything?
I'm mostly tired of hearing about it because it seems like it's always a kind of sales pitch and almost never a clear description of what it actually is and what the evidence says about it. Even when the author/presenter/etc. has an actual academic background in psychology, it feels more like they're trying to get me to join their religion than describing their research.
Not doubting the author, but I'm curious why people upvote these articles that present some X viewpoint and just back it up with "I did this because of X, therefore X is so and so" without any scientific research
Again I'm not disagreeing with him, but do people enjoy this kind of articles for motivational purpose or than information? Just curious
Good advice, but keep in mind that willpower might be a limited resource (it is[1], it isn't[2]). You do not want to spend it all while training for grit.
In my personal experience, willpower is indeed limited. But that's n=1. As with everything in life, moderation is key.
Interesting. As a non-native speaker I wasn't really aware of this meaning of the word "grit", but it seems very similar to the concept of "sisu" [1] in Finnish, often regarded as an integral part of the national character of Finns and considered very difficult if not impossible to translate exactly. Wikipedia does list "grit" as one of the mental characteristics "sisu" can be thought to be a combination of.
I highly recommend looking into a GORUCK Challenge (https://www.goruck.com/the-challenge/) for anyone who wants to develop stronger mental muscle in a few short* hours.
It's amazing how just a short period of discomfort pares away the bullshit. You learn how to prioritize under duress, work with other people to assess, quantify and leverage strengths, and you figure out that you're capable of more than you thought.
You wouldn't think that a physical challenge translates outside of that scope. But it does, because most physical challenges are really mental challenges featuring a facade of physical discomfort.
I agree. I would also add on a personal note, I'm not religious by any account, but your goals have to be your religion. You have to have faith that your grit will achieve those goals and pray to the gods of achievement everyday and be grateful you are alive to be on this journey, no matter how hard it is. Its kind of like you have to willingly be insane. I also found it helps if you work out really hard to get through some of those darker days as your small workout achievement boosts your mood and in a way is similar to having pain and then being the master if it by running up that hill, etc. Great article.
I do not agree with your first sentences. You can work hard without being insane. In fact you can decide to work very hard based on reason. 'Teach Yourself Stoicism and the Art of Happiness' by Donald J. Robertson is a great introduction.
> You have to have faith that your grit will achieve those goals and pray to the gods of achievement everyday
Having faith, that your grit will achieve your goals is also sort of insane. It's irrational for sure. Whether you achieve a goal or not is out of your control. All you can and should do is to try your best.
For grit to work you also need some success from time to time. You can't just grind along without ever getting positive feedback or you'll burn out at some point.
Good advice but incomplete in my opinion. Discipline(grit) is good, but developing it without a concrete goal is very hard.
He uses push ups as an example and states that it's not for the physical conditioning, but to train his grit. That's his goal. He's chosen this thing and has probably thought for a while about its value, and has come to the conclusion that it is worth the tradeoff is the time and pain of the pushups.
Goals are personal and the same might not work with everyone. If 'developing grit' is some wishy washy thing that an article on the internet told you to do, then you might not stick with the pushups. If your goal is to pass a fitness test for becoming a firefighter or something, and that's something that you really, really want to do, the pushups become easy as long as you hold your ultimate goal in mind.
The most disciplined people in the world got there not because being the most disciplined was their goal, but discipline was necessary for attaining it.
Incidentally it's pretty common to injure yourself with one of those 0-100 exercise programs like push-ups. I gave it a try and screwed up my elbows for a while.
I am reading a book about management “a sense of emergency” by John P. Kotter, and weirdly I think it’s also an excellent book for self development to improve grit and reduce procastination.
There is a guy from Stanford, BJ Fogg is the name IIRC, who does a course "Simple Habits". It's like, commit to doing 1 pushup for 5 days first thing in the morning. It is supposed to lead to forming long-term bigger habits, but I'm personally not convinced. Anyways, check him out.
If we are talking depression: try getting more veggies, try going for a walk outside. Small steps. Try changing your surrounding a bit. Then seek medical support ? And don't blame yourself.
Start by making your bed when you get up, because it's something easy that naturally belongs at that time, and gives you immediate visual feedback in the form of a nicer looking room.
'''
Grit has external connotations of extreme toughness, a high apparent threshold for pain, and an ability to keep picking yourself up after getting knocked down. From the outside, grit looks like the bloody-minded exercise of extreme will power. It looks like a super-power.
I used to believe this understanding of grit as a superhuman trait. I used to think I didn’t possess it. Yet people seem to think I exhibit it in some departments. Like reading and writing. They are aghast at the amount of reading I do. They wonder how I can keep churning out thousands of words, week after week, year after year, with no guarantee that any particular piece of writing will be well-received.
They think I must possess superhuman willpower because they make a very simple projection error: they think it is hard for me because it would be hard for them. Well of course things are going to take superhuman willpower if you go after them with the wrong strengths.
...
If it isn’t crystal clear, I am advocating the view that if you find that what you are doing is ridiculously hard for you, it is the wrong thing for you to be doing. I maintain that you should not have to work significantly harder or faster to succeed today than you had to 50 years ago. A little harder perhaps. Mainly, you just have to drop external frames of reference and trust your internal navigation on a landscape of your own strengths. It may look like superhuman grit to an outsider, but if it feels like that inside to you, you’re doing something wrong.
...
Exhortation is pointless. Humans don’t suddenly become super-human just because the environment suddenly seems to demand superhuman behavior for survival. Those who attempt this kill themselves just as surely as those dumb kids who watch a superman movie and jump off buildings hoping to fly.
It is the landscape of your own strengths that matters. And you can set your own, completely human pace through it.
The only truly new behavior you need is increased introspection. And yes, this will advantage some people over others. To avoid running faster and faster until you die of exhaustion, you need to develop an increasingly refined understanding of this landscape as you progress. You twist and turn as you walk (not run) primarily to find the path of least resistance on the landscape of your strengths.
[+] [-] DoreenMichele|8 years ago|reply
This completely changed my concept of such people and became a cornerstone for getting me through a lot of challenges in the last roughly decade.
People who do hard things aren't simply awesome at everything or blessed to come from the right family, have the right education etc. Some of them are getting through hard things by managing their emotions and psychology with some of the same tricks used by political prisoners being subjected to torture and trying to not break.
[+] [-] epberry|8 years ago|reply
It does seem to me though that for creative thinking or solving really tough engineering problems that rest and laziness can actually be productive. So I don't know how to reconcile that with "training my grit muscle". It seems both are important.
[+] [-] rewtraw|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|8 years ago|reply
If the pace is right you can stretch pretty far.
[+] [-] lawn|8 years ago|reply
I try to use a similar strategy of getting myself to train: I should go there and get dressed and if I still don't feel like it I can go skip and go home. So far I have only skipped it once, and that was after I trained for 20 min.
It's also perfectly applicable for when you should work on a project but it's hard to get started. Just force yourself the first 10-15min and then you can stop. It's almost always the case that you will continue after the initial struggle.
[+] [-] tw1010|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|8 years ago|reply
I'll use myself as an example. I've heard the bromides of "Get out of your comfort zone" and "push through", yada yada, many times. And I indeed have gotten out of my comfort zone many times. But I've found that often times I have extreme stress reactions, sometimes bordering on panic, when I get too outside my comfort zone. I find this especially the case where I take too much on at once - I have a poor ability to prioritize and just "let things go" that aren't important. I wish this weren't the case, but after many cases of trial and error I've found this is how I am. It's not that I'm not capable of growth and change, but I'm quite positive what has worked for this guy will most definitely not work for me.
In general, be very careful of following any successful person's advice on how they became successful. There were a whole lot of other circumstances, innate gifts, and a lot of luck for any specific person that won't transfer broadly.
[+] [-] randomstudent|8 years ago|reply
Yes, you can say that I just wasn't "gritty" enough, but that's the same as saying that everyone who injures themselves in exercise wasn't "careful" enough. You're redefining "careful" in order for your theory to be right. Sometimes bad outcomes happen even when you do everything you can.
My goal here is not only to discourage you from trying hard to achieve your goals (that's a goal, of course). The main thing here is to get ready for life to kick you in the face no matter how much grit you have, and sometimes, precisely for having a lot of grit (no, I won't go into details).
The most important skill isn't grit, it's the wisdom to decide when applying grit is worth it. And no, I don't know how you train this or even if it is trainable. It might be just luck.
Instead of relying on grit, stick to what you do best and don't try to use grit as a replacement for talent or other qualities. If someone is naturally better than you, in a competition they'll just get grittier than their baseline and eclipse you.
This is anecdotal but so is the linked article. For any aphorism there is an equally valid and opposite aphorism.
[+] [-] siliconc0w|8 years ago|reply
I loathe effort so much that even a banal day to day activity like folding clothes upsets me. I switched to a 'bin' system that allows me to sort a load of laundry into bins in a few minutes.
I've perfected several 'one pan/pot' type recipes. A rare and particularly sophisticated meal might use two pieces of cookware. Oh and ask me about nutrition bars. At least one meal a day is in bar form.
Anything non-perishable I might need is shipped from amazon. For perishables, I shop at a store down the street like I'm robbing a bank. In and out in a few minutes.
Effort feels wrong. Like I'm missing something. I can still do it but my mind is brute forcing the ways to make it easier next time.
[+] [-] mac01021|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emodendroket|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xcde4c3db|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 659087|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mywacaday|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krapp|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] volgo|8 years ago|reply
Again I'm not disagreeing with him, but do people enjoy this kind of articles for motivational purpose or than information? Just curious
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] fasteo|8 years ago|reply
In my personal experience, willpower is indeed limited. But that's n=1. As with everything in life, moderation is key.
[1] https://www.wired.com/2012/10/mf-willpower/
[2] https://digest.bps.org.uk/2015/06/24/new-research-challenges...
[+] [-] grendelt|8 years ago|reply
Isn’t perseverance carrying on in the face of obstacles or without reinforcement anyway?
[+] [-] emodendroket|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChristianBundy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sharlin|8 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisu
[+] [-] crikli|8 years ago|reply
I highly recommend looking into a GORUCK Challenge (https://www.goruck.com/the-challenge/) for anyone who wants to develop stronger mental muscle in a few short* hours.
It's amazing how just a short period of discomfort pares away the bullshit. You learn how to prioritize under duress, work with other people to assess, quantify and leverage strengths, and you figure out that you're capable of more than you thought.
You wouldn't think that a physical challenge translates outside of that scope. But it does, because most physical challenges are really mental challenges featuring a facade of physical discomfort.
*They will not feel short.
[+] [-] icebraining|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sebringj|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FrojoS|8 years ago|reply
> You have to have faith that your grit will achieve those goals and pray to the gods of achievement everyday
Having faith, that your grit will achieve your goals is also sort of insane. It's irrational for sure. Whether you achieve a goal or not is out of your control. All you can and should do is to try your best.
[+] [-] maxxxxx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nicolashahn|8 years ago|reply
He uses push ups as an example and states that it's not for the physical conditioning, but to train his grit. That's his goal. He's chosen this thing and has probably thought for a while about its value, and has come to the conclusion that it is worth the tradeoff is the time and pain of the pushups.
Goals are personal and the same might not work with everyone. If 'developing grit' is some wishy washy thing that an article on the internet told you to do, then you might not stick with the pushups. If your goal is to pass a fitness test for becoming a firefighter or something, and that's something that you really, really want to do, the pushups become easy as long as you hold your ultimate goal in mind.
The most disciplined people in the world got there not because being the most disciplined was their goal, but discipline was necessary for attaining it.
[+] [-] emodendroket|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hartator|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkagenius|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icebraining|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goodJobWalrus|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnchristopher|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpindar|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dlwdlw|8 years ago|reply
Some excerpts:
''' Grit has external connotations of extreme toughness, a high apparent threshold for pain, and an ability to keep picking yourself up after getting knocked down. From the outside, grit looks like the bloody-minded exercise of extreme will power. It looks like a super-power.
I used to believe this understanding of grit as a superhuman trait. I used to think I didn’t possess it. Yet people seem to think I exhibit it in some departments. Like reading and writing. They are aghast at the amount of reading I do. They wonder how I can keep churning out thousands of words, week after week, year after year, with no guarantee that any particular piece of writing will be well-received.
They think I must possess superhuman willpower because they make a very simple projection error: they think it is hard for me because it would be hard for them. Well of course things are going to take superhuman willpower if you go after them with the wrong strengths.
...
If it isn’t crystal clear, I am advocating the view that if you find that what you are doing is ridiculously hard for you, it is the wrong thing for you to be doing. I maintain that you should not have to work significantly harder or faster to succeed today than you had to 50 years ago. A little harder perhaps. Mainly, you just have to drop external frames of reference and trust your internal navigation on a landscape of your own strengths. It may look like superhuman grit to an outsider, but if it feels like that inside to you, you’re doing something wrong.
...
Exhortation is pointless. Humans don’t suddenly become super-human just because the environment suddenly seems to demand superhuman behavior for survival. Those who attempt this kill themselves just as surely as those dumb kids who watch a superman movie and jump off buildings hoping to fly.
It is the landscape of your own strengths that matters. And you can set your own, completely human pace through it.
The only truly new behavior you need is increased introspection. And yes, this will advantage some people over others. To avoid running faster and faster until you die of exhaustion, you need to develop an increasingly refined understanding of this landscape as you progress. You twist and turn as you walk (not run) primarily to find the path of least resistance on the landscape of your strengths.
'''
[+] [-] johnchristopher|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zerostar07|8 years ago|reply