11 ms·

Grit is a muscle, train it

95 points by eriktrautman 9y ago

sebringj 9y ago
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.
- FrojoS 9y ago
  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.
  - sebringj 9y ago
    Well its subjective as I cannot exactly say feelings. When I mean "insane" I just mean it feels that way as you are pushing yourself toward something without definitive proof or in some cases breaking completely new ground that relies on a lot of things working out of your control. Definitely can be interpreted many ways, I agree.
mkagenius 9y ago
“Once you form a habit, habit starts forming you”
tw1010 9y ago
He's right. But muscles can also break from overuse. Just be careful, ya'll.
- hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
  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.
  - almost_usual 9y ago
    This is why most people cannot become a Navy Seal. At some point you hit physical and mental ceilings and your body has to stop.
  - dwaltrip 9y ago
    Do you think you perhaps pushed too far too fast, and that a slower pace might work better? Or that the circumstances were not well suited to support "pushing through" at that time? I'm genuinely curious here. I also empathize with the struggle you have experienced. Sometimes I'm not sure how hard I should push myself, or when I need to first repair or strengthen my foundations.
zerostar07 9y ago
how can you do crunches in the bed?
grendelt 9y ago
What’s the difference between “grit” and the traditional understanding of perseverance? Isn’t perseverance carrying on in the face of obstacles or without reinforcement anyway?
- emodendroket 9y ago
  A TED Talk.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
    or Medium post.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      In this particular case I think it's the TED Talk and accompanying book by Tammy Duckworth.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        It's actually Angela Duckworth and not Tammy Duckworth. Sorry Senator.
- ChristianBundy 9y ago
  Synonyms.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
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.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  there's a quote by someone about the "small step after small step" If the pace is right you can stretch pretty far.
  - dwaltrip 9y ago
    Great achievements are the fleeting, momentary assembly of a vast number of small, seemingly insignificant steps. Success comes not from seeking great achievements, but from the relentless pursuit of the next small step. Of course, the difficulty here is knowing which small steps are worth doing. But I think everyone can come up with a list of small steps that would have at least some benefit, and then just pick one. Slowly, the small benefits will accumulate like a snowball. Each additional next step can then be taken with a bit more wisdom and understanding. Alternative angle: in our lives there are vast areas of chaos and confusion, as well as domains of order and understanding. Each day we can work to increase the domain of order and understanding a small bit, and overtime it can grow to encompass an impressive size to the benefit of ourselves and many others. Looking back, one can be amazed at how far they have come without even realizing the extent of the journey. For example, one of the easiest ways to get started is by cleaning one's room or some other mundane but useful task. At the very least, it makes things a bit nicer and feels good. Small wins beget other small wins. These ideas have served me well so far.
emodendroket 9y ago
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?
- mywacaday 9y ago
  Grit only relates to corn in the US as far as I know. May be used as a reference to a fine gravel put on roads during snow/ice in Ireland/UK
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    > plural of grit "coarsely ground grain," Old English grytt (plural grytta) "coarse meal, groats, grits," from Proto-Germanic *grutja-, from the same root as grit (n.), the two words having influenced one another in sound development. But I mean realistically hominy grits are not very popular in the UK. You can read some kind of amusing old 18th-Century letters with people writing about "I don't know how people can stand to eat this crap" talking about cornbread and grits and the like, because English people took to eating corn (or maize for our Commonwealth friends) more due its being readily available in North America than a conscious decision.
  - rzzzt 9y ago
    Also the coarseness of sandpaper.
- krapp 9y ago
  How about gumption? Moxie? Spunk?
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I mean the whole thing is a repackaging of the idea that nothing matters except whether you tried hard enough.
- 0xcde4c3db 9y ago
  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.
nicolashahn 9y ago
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.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  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.
icebraining 9y ago
Hypothetically, what if you don't have the willpower to do even a small thing every day? How is the process bootstrapped?
- goodJobWalrus 9y ago
  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.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Interesting, thanks. Still, it takes at least a bit of initial grit to do that one pushup - especially every day.
    - oracB5 9y ago
      You need to get the ball moving with following your own instructions. The first tasks don't have to be useful or related, just doable. Eg force yourself to blink. Then raise one arm. Then stand up. Now you are half way to doing the pushup. Ignore the silliness of it all, and keep going. With each progressively harder step, you gain more momentum and more energy to take bigger steps.
- jpindar 9y ago
  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.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    But isn't the visual feedback counterproductive? I think grit means repeatedly doing it despite not having that immediate feedback. At least, that's the kind of habits I think people have a real problem sustaining. I do make my bed every day, although not in the morning - I prefer to unmake it so it can receive sunlight. But I don't think it takes any willpower, since I find it a pleasant activity.
volgo 9y ago
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
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
maxxxxx 9y ago
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.
crikli 9y ago
"Grit" aka mental toughness under duress. I highly recommend looking into a GORUCK Challenge (https://www.goruck.com/the-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 9y ago
  If you can summon the willpower to go to one of those, I'd say you already have more than the average person.
siliconc0w 9y ago
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.
- mac01021 9y ago
  Please share some recipes!
  - eesmith 9y ago
    This is also a genre of cookbooks. For example, https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=one+pot+recipies https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Da... . Here's a list of 46 such recipes: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/one-pot https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/one-pot . Mmm, I think it's time to make jambalaya again.
Sharlin 9y ago
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. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisu
fasteo 9y ago
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. [1] https://www.wired.com/2012/10/mf-willpower/ https://www.wired.com/2012/10/mf-willpower/ [2] https://digest.bps.org.uk/2015/06/24/new-research-challenges-the-idea-that-willpower-is-a-limited-resource/ https://digest.bps.org.uk/2015/06/24/new-research-challenges...
hartator 9y ago
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.
randomstudent 9y ago
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.
dlwdlw 9y ago
Here is IMO a much better framework to think about grit: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/08/19/the-calculus-of-grit/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/08/19/the-calculus-of-grit/ 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 9y ago
I wish mental problems could be « gritted out » as easily as physical challenges :).

95 points by eriktrautman 9y ago

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.

FrojoS 9y ago
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.
- sebringj 9y ago
  Well its subjective as I cannot exactly say feelings. When I mean "insane" I just mean it feels that way as you are pushing yourself toward something without definitive proof or in some cases breaking completely new ground that relies on a lot of things working out of your control. Definitely can be interpreted many ways, I agree.

mkagenius 9y ago

“Once you form a habit, habit starts forming you”

tw1010 9y ago

He's right. But muscles can also break from overuse. Just be careful, ya'll.

hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
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.
- almost_usual 9y ago
  This is why most people cannot become a Navy Seal. At some point you hit physical and mental ceilings and your body has to stop.
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  Do you think you perhaps pushed too far too fast, and that a slower pace might work better? Or that the circumstances were not well suited to support "pushing through" at that time? I'm genuinely curious here. I also empathize with the struggle you have experienced. Sometimes I'm not sure how hard I should push myself, or when I need to first repair or strengthen my foundations.

zerostar07 9y ago

how can you do crunches in the bed?

grendelt 9y ago

What’s the difference between “grit” and the traditional understanding of perseverance? Isn’t perseverance carrying on in the face of obstacles or without reinforcement anyway?

emodendroket 9y ago
A TED Talk.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  or Medium post.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    In this particular case I think it's the TED Talk and accompanying book by Tammy Duckworth.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      It's actually Angela Duckworth and not Tammy Duckworth. Sorry Senator.
ChristianBundy 9y ago
Synonyms.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

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.

agumonkey 9y ago
there's a quote by someone about the "small step after small step" If the pace is right you can stretch pretty far.
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  Great achievements are the fleeting, momentary assembly of a vast number of small, seemingly insignificant steps. Success comes not from seeking great achievements, but from the relentless pursuit of the next small step. Of course, the difficulty here is knowing which small steps are worth doing. But I think everyone can come up with a list of small steps that would have at least some benefit, and then just pick one. Slowly, the small benefits will accumulate like a snowball. Each additional next step can then be taken with a bit more wisdom and understanding. Alternative angle: in our lives there are vast areas of chaos and confusion, as well as domains of order and understanding. Each day we can work to increase the domain of order and understanding a small bit, and overtime it can grow to encompass an impressive size to the benefit of ourselves and many others. Looking back, one can be amazed at how far they have come without even realizing the extent of the journey. For example, one of the easiest ways to get started is by cleaning one's room or some other mundane but useful task. At the very least, it makes things a bit nicer and feels good. Small wins beget other small wins. These ideas have served me well so far.

emodendroket 9y ago

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?

mywacaday 9y ago
Grit only relates to corn in the US as far as I know. May be used as a reference to a fine gravel put on roads during snow/ice in Ireland/UK
- emodendroket 9y ago
  > plural of grit "coarsely ground grain," Old English grytt (plural grytta) "coarse meal, groats, grits," from Proto-Germanic *grutja-, from the same root as grit (n.), the two words having influenced one another in sound development. But I mean realistically hominy grits are not very popular in the UK. You can read some kind of amusing old 18th-Century letters with people writing about "I don't know how people can stand to eat this crap" talking about cornbread and grits and the like, because English people took to eating corn (or maize for our Commonwealth friends) more due its being readily available in North America than a conscious decision.
- rzzzt 9y ago
  Also the coarseness of sandpaper.
krapp 9y ago
How about gumption? Moxie? Spunk?
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I mean the whole thing is a repackaging of the idea that nothing matters except whether you tried hard enough.
0xcde4c3db 9y ago
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.

nicolashahn 9y ago

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.

emodendroket 9y ago
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.

icebraining 9y ago

Hypothetically, what if you don't have the willpower to do even a small thing every day? How is the process bootstrapped?

goodJobWalrus 9y ago
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.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Interesting, thanks. Still, it takes at least a bit of initial grit to do that one pushup - especially every day.
  - oracB5 9y ago
    You need to get the ball moving with following your own instructions. The first tasks don't have to be useful or related, just doable. Eg force yourself to blink. Then raise one arm. Then stand up. Now you are half way to doing the pushup. Ignore the silliness of it all, and keep going. With each progressively harder step, you gain more momentum and more energy to take bigger steps.
jpindar 9y ago
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.
- icebraining 9y ago
  But isn't the visual feedback counterproductive? I think grit means repeatedly doing it despite not having that immediate feedback. At least, that's the kind of habits I think people have a real problem sustaining. I do make my bed every day, although not in the morning - I prefer to unmake it so it can receive sunlight. But I don't think it takes any willpower, since I find it a pleasant activity.

volgo 9y ago

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

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

maxxxxx 9y ago

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.

crikli 9y ago

"Grit" aka mental toughness under duress. I highly recommend looking into a GORUCK Challenge (https://www.goruck.com/the-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 9y ago
If you can summon the willpower to go to one of those, I'd say you already have more than the average person.

siliconc0w 9y ago

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.

mac01021 9y ago
Please share some recipes!
- eesmith 9y ago
  This is also a genre of cookbooks. For example, https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=one+pot+recipies https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Da... . Here's a list of 46 such recipes: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/one-pot https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/one-pot . Mmm, I think it's time to make jambalaya again.

Sharlin 9y ago

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. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisu

fasteo 9y ago

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. [1] https://www.wired.com/2012/10/mf-willpower/ https://www.wired.com/2012/10/mf-willpower/ [2] https://digest.bps.org.uk/2015/06/24/new-research-challenges-the-idea-that-willpower-is-a-limited-resource/ https://digest.bps.org.uk/2015/06/24/new-research-challenges...

hartator 9y ago

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.

randomstudent 9y ago

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.

dlwdlw 9y ago

Here is IMO a much better framework to think about grit: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/08/19/the-calculus-of-grit/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/08/19/the-calculus-of-grit/ 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 9y ago

I wish mental problems could be « gritted out » as easily as physical challenges :).