Weve all done it: made a big, far-reaching goal thats exciting, challenging, and even a little scary.
You start out strong with big aspirations. You may even tell a few friends or family members.
And while the initial push goes well, before long, you start to struggle.
Life starts to get in the way. One missed workout turns into two. The deadline to sign up for that race you were so excited about comes and goes.
Before long, youre making excuses about why your goal wasnt realistic in the first place.
You see other people stick with programs, skills, and difficult challenges and eventually accomplish amazing things
but you just cant seem to stick with anything.
Whenever this happens, its easy to get disappointed and feel like you cant accomplish anything. But thats not the case.
Youre not hopeless. You just need to build some grit.
What it Means to Have Grit
From the book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth, grit is defined as: passion and perseverance for long-term goals.
The truest form of grit combines persistence, ambition, and self-discipline in the pursuit of big goals that might take months, years, or even decades to accomplish.
In terms of health and fitness, these could be intentions like making fitness an integrated part of your lifestyle and your identity, working toward long-term competition goals, or working toward mastery in a specific sport or with various skills.
Of course, grit doesnt just apply only to our biggest long-term goals. We also need to have grit in order to accomplish smaller goals and develop habits, such as finishing a workout program, working toward a challenging skill like pull-ups or handstands, or making sure youre moving enough during the day to get in your 10,000 steps.
Basically, you have to have a certain amount of grit in order to stick with any goal.
How to Grow Your Grit
So how do you grow your grit when it comes to health and fitness? Like anything, grit is a skill that can be learned and trained in time. Heres how to go about increasing grit:
Step One: Find a Goal You Care About
The first step in the grit-building process is to find something you care about enough to stick with for an extended period of time. After all, why waste time being gritty on something that doesnt really matter to you?
But this important first step is easier said than done. In fact, a lot of people actually get stuck at this point in the process trying to figure out something theyre passionate enough about to pursue long-term. They get so worried about finding the absolute perfect fit that they never end up pursuingor even tryinganything at all.
On the other hand, some people dive right in and commit wholeheartedly to a goal, only to find out fairly quickly that theyre actually not that interested in that goal (or the steps it takes to pursue that goal) after all. This often leads to people quitting and feeling like a failure early on. Even worse, some people stick with goals that theyre not really that interested for a long time in order not to seem like a quitter. This often leads to unhappiness and missed opportunities to pursue other interests.
The better approach? Keep trying new things until you find something that fascinates you enough to stick with it.
The key is to avoid putting too much pressure on this processit may take years until you find something that feels like the right fit. Be patient, and try to enjoy the process of discovery.
Step Two: Seek Out Knowledge to Improve
Once youre relatively clear on your long-term goal, the next step is to seek out the necessary knowledge to improve. This can be in the form of books, online programs, in-person coaching, workshops, etc.
The trick here is to not overload yourself with too much high-level knowledge too early because doing so can leave you in a state of overwhelm, not knowing where to start. Try to avoid getting too far ahead of yourself in the process and aim for a daily challenge at about four percent above your current skill level (more on this later).
Make sure to break your long-term goals into small, manageable steps that steadily progress toward your larger goal. This will help you stay motivated to take action without being too overwhelmed about the big picture.
For example, if I had decided that I wanted to go straight to training my one arm handstand before even getting a regular five-second freestanding handstand, I would have given up early on because it would have all been too big and overwhelming. Even if my original goal had been a one arm handstand, getting my regular freestanding handstand would have been a necessary step along the way to that bigger long-term goal.
Step Three: Connect it to a Larger Purpose or Higher Value
Another key piece of increasing grit is to connect your goal to a larger purpose related to your higher values. In your regular life or career, this usually means figuring out how what youre doing is helping others and making a difference in the world. In terms of your own health and fitness, this may be as simple as connecting your goal to your value of living a healthy, active life.
The point is that its not just about sticking with that new program or building up your skill arsenal in the short-term. Connecting your smaller goal to a larger purpose makes it much more likely youll stick with your goals when things get hard (and they will!).
Step Four: Track and Adjust
This step really should be implemented early on in the process of any goal pursuit. Because as much as we would all like to experience smooth, linear progress toward our goals, thats just not the way it normally works.
Two steps forward, one step back is more typical than not when going after a challenging enough goal.
The key to constant improvement is to work on both your strengths and your weaknesses so that your weaknesses slowly become your strengths. This takes practice.
You develop a capacity for doing hard practice the kind scientists call deliberate practice. Over years of working in a very diligent way on your weaknesses, you improve. Angela Duckworth
If at any point in the process you feel like youve plateued and arent sure where to go next, it may be time to reevaluate and ask yourself these questions:
Is this goal still something I want to pursue?
Quitting isnt always a negative thing as long as its intentional and youve invested enough time in it to know that its not your thing.
In Grit Duckworth suggests that kids (but this obviously applies to adults, too) stick with a new sport or activity for one to two yearslong enough to actually see some progressbefore quitting to try something new. This may seem like a long time in our instant-results-society, but one to two years is a good amount of time to actually see some real progress on a new goal.
If after that amount of time you decide its no longer a goal you want to pursue, whether because of different interests or new priorities, then, by all means, find something new to go after.
Do I need to decrease the challenge?
Often times, when we make a big goal (like to be able to do a freestanding handstand, run a marathon, compete in an amateur boxing match, etc.), were so stuck on that end goal that anything less than that can seem like were coming up short.
But the key to actually accomplishing those big, long-term goals is to break them down into smaller, manageable steps. If youre not making progress because your current goal is just a little too challenging, break it down further. For example, if your goal is to be able to do a push-up, you can break it down by first doing push-ups with your hands on a countertop, then once you build up strength moving to a bench, a step, and finally, to the floor.
Do I need to up the challenge?
If youre the type of person that almost always gets bored with long-term goals, you may actually need to increase the challenge, not decrease it.
Steven Kotler, the author of Stealing Fire, The Rise of Superman, Bold, and other books on high performance, suggests from his research that you should aim to increase the challenge by about four percent on a constant basis. This four percent reach is the sweet spot that will help you continue to make progress and get into flow or in the zone on a regular basis.
Flow appears near the emotional midpoint between boredom and anxiety, in what scientists call the flow channel the spot where the task is hard enough to make us stretch but not hard enough to make us snap. Steven Kotler
Do I need more feedback?
If youre been at a goal for a while and are just feeling stuck, it may be because youve reached the limits of your knowledge base and need more feedback on how to break through and keep making progress.
The best way to get this kind of feedback is to find someone more experienced than you, whether its a coach, a physical therapist, or even an experienced friend or mentor. Because of their own experience in the subject area, they know the often simple adjustments you need to make to get through your current struggle phase and continue making progress.
If you cant afford to hire someone, there are always free or low-cost resources like books, online courses, video tutorials, etc. The internet is an amazing placeyou can learn nearly anything if you put your mind to it.
Other Ways to Increase Grit
Here are some additional ways to increase your grit and stick with your goals:
Surround yourself with gritty people. If the friends, family, and colleagues you spend the most time with are also working on being gritty with long-term goals, youre much more likely to stick with your goals, too.
Believe you can. It may sound silly, but believing in yourself is a huge part of sticking with challenges long-term. If you believe that your hard work will ultimately result in success, youll be more likely to actually put in the time and work and keep going when its tough.
Celebrate small wins. Keeping track of your progress is a key part of achieving long-term goals, and its important to celebrate small wins along the way. Being able to hold a wall handstand five seconds more than yesterday may not feel like much now, but it will add up big time long-term. Celebrate your win and keep going.
Remember that grit is a skill, just like anything else. While some people may indeed be born with a little more grit than others, ultimately grit is a skill that can be trained. Basically, if you work at increasing your grit, youll become more gritty.
Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another. Angela Duckworth
source : https://www.12minuteathlete.com/
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