What’s the Secret Ingredient for Success Toward Your Goal?

Sometimes, it’s hard to know who is the teacher and who is the learner. Here’s a recent story that taught me a lesson in determination, stamina, and positive self-talk.

One afternoon, my 4-year-old and I were playing dominoes. We decided to create a “domino effect,” positioning the dominoes upright on their sides in a row, short distances apart.

Source: Sparrowshome/Pixabay

Our objective was to set them up, then push the first domino in the line, triggering a chain reaction of clattering, falling dominoes. Yet repeatedly, we would begin setting them up, then one domino would accidentally fall, toppling the remainder – long before we’d completed assembling them. At first, we just laughed and began again. After about 10 attempts, I began to feel a bit frustrated. Amazingly, I observed this young child continue calmly to re-trace her actions. I exclaimed, “You are very patient. You just keep trying.”

And she said to me, “We can rebuild. We’ve got grit!”

Over and over, we’d arrange the dominoes and somewhere in the process they would fall before we’d completed setting them all up. And each time, the 4-year-old child, a model for Grit, persistence, and resilience, would exclaim, “We can rebuild. We’ve got grit!”

Finally, we got the dominoes lined up and ready to set off the domino effect. The child pushed the first one and success! We reached our goal; a chain reaction with each domino consecutively knocking over the next. What fun it was to watch the result of our energies, attention, and of course, grit. We laughed, hugged, and began again.

Grit is the courage, passion, and perseverance to follow through to achieve a goal we care about. Anyone of any age can strengthen their grit.

Helping us successfully achieve long-term objectives, grit matters in school, at work, and in our personal lives and endeavors. According to University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth, Ph.D., grit can contribute more to achieving success than talent or IQ (2016). She writes: “As much as talent counts, effort counts twice.”

What ingredients can strengthen grit?

• Genuine interest in the goal. A sense of purpose that your work matters to you and to others.
• Perseverance and practice. Grit is more than talent. Lots of hard work and intentional practice are important.
• Believing that failure is not permanent. With hard work you can learn, grow, and change, using what is called a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006; Duckworth, 2013). When you make mistakes, you can learn from them. Using those learnings, you can try again with a new understanding and or strategy.
• Hope and resilience. Youth and adults with grit are able to generate the hope that their aims are possible. Even when things are tough, and the next steps aren’t certain, they can get up and try again.

8 Ways to Get Back Up When You Fall Down

1. Remind yourself about your “Why.” Think about why you’re doing this. What’s so important about it? What are the benefits to you and to others in the bigger picture?

2. Teach yourself to self-talk more optimistically and positively when you’re striving toward your long-term goals (Duckworth, 2016). For example, self-talk, such as:

“What can I learn from this experience?”

“I’ll break it down into smaller steps and try again.”

“I can do this. What’s another option to try?”

“I am sticking with my goal and will eventually reach it.”

3. Give yourself a kind, mindful embrace with a compassionate pause. Take a mindful moment to inhale and exhale. Do this several times if you feel comfortable doing so. Then, ask yourself what’s my next right step?

4. Consider other options to tackle the challenge and try one or more. If one pathway is blocked, what’s another way you might consider?

5. Take a deeper dive. Maybe going deeper in some way could help. Seek additional information, a new tool, or skill. Think carefully about where you got stuck, and what could be done differently. Involve your teammates or create a team to collaborate with.

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6. Look for some humor in the challenge. Have fun.

7. Ask for help or support when you need it to get back up or remind you to keep going when you fall (Snyder, 1994). One of my mindfulness teachers, Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg, says, “Fall down, get up.” Short and simple, it’s a great reminder as we face struggles in life.

8. Sometimes it can be helpful to temporarily walk away to get some distance, and then return to the task with renewed energy, stamina, and perspective.

“We can rebuild. We’ve got grit.”

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only. No content is a substitute for consulting with a qualified mental health or healthcare professional.