Have you ever watched a TED talk with a colleague or a movie with a friend and walked away with a completely different take-away than they did? How we interpret data is of course filtered through our own experiences and our mood, ability to focus and a bunch of other factors including how tired we are. If you are a Vistage Member and have not watched or rewatched Angela Duckworth’s one hour talk on GRIT I highly recommend you do so before it is pulled off on May 30.
In her talk Dr. Duckworth breaks down Grit into 2 main categories: Perseverance and Passion. She has a 10 point assessment that is really fun for self assessors to take. Further, all of her work is based on large data studies and backed by fact. How refreshing. In groups of highly Gritty Vistage Members the take-aways were endless but fell into certain patterns. One of the most frequent take-aways was : Don’t quit on a bad day.
Dr. Duckworth used an example most people can relate to about when to quit if you want to quit. You or your child commit to a team sport and aren’t doing well. Do you quit when you drop the fly ball or lose the race? Data shows that if you stick through those bad days, you can quit at the end of your commitment having sampled this activity and finding it is not your passion.You are not a failure. You have to sample things to find out where your passion is. Quitting is smart….at the end of the commitment. Her research on elite athletes shows that bad days are a common experience. Having a mentor or coach to help you break down what happened and how to move forward is often critical to seeing how to move forward. There is a piece of hope in all of this, too. You can always quit at a predesignated point if this still is not working by then. The big take-away is that you can inject choice and agency in this situation whatever you decide is best for you.
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