Hi Fabulous Traveler,

After an in-depth study of people who were encountering difficult circumstances, academic and researcher Angela Duckworth made a powerful discovery. She found one central factor in common between those who overcame their challenges and found success:

In sum, no matter the domain, the highly successful had a type of ferocious determination that played out in two ways. First, these exemplars were unusually resilient and hardworking. Second, they knew in a very, very deep way what it was they wanted. They not only had determination, they had direction. It was this combination of passion and perseverance that made high achievers special. In a word, they had grit.

This excerpt, taken from Duckworth's book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, shows us that it’s not simply an intensity of desire that brings about fulfillment and achievement, but the capacity to be consistent over time.

Someone who particularly inspired Duckworth stated "Grit is about working on something you care about so much that you're willing to stay loyal to it....it's doing what you love, but not just falling in love--staying in love".

'Staying in love' connects us to one more crucial element of Grit: the capacity to keep going after failure. When you have grit, Fabulous Traveler, you keep going no matter what stands in your way. You keep going even when you fail, time and again. In fact, you're not afraid of failing, because you see it as an opportunity to learn, to grow, and to evolve.

With grit, you recognize the journey is as significant as the arrival to the larger goal. You also recognize that, when you live that journey with purpose, you are arriving at a goal each and every day.

Living your purpose is an essential part of grit, and grit is an essential part of living your purpose. So you're going to discover how much grit you have Fabulous Traveler, and learn the tools you need to build it.

What's Grit Got to Do With It

Angela Duckworth writes that "...the ability to be gritty—to stick with things that are important to you and bounce back from failure—is an essential component of success independent of and beyond what talent and intelligence can contribute". Her research has also shown that while grit can be a natural quality someone has, it can also be learned, nurtured, and developed just like any other skill. Grit is a form of mental toughness. You have to strengthen your mental muscles to become tough.

Without realizing it, over the last week you've begun strengthening the very muscle you need for grit with the 3 R's of Habit Formation. Daily habits are a core foundation of grit because they keep you consistent, dedicated, and continually directing your energy and focus towards your goals. As it happens, there are other ways you've been cultivating your grittiness too.

1. You've been focusing on your passions: To stay 'in-love' with something through the ups and downs of life you have to deeply care about it. It must excite you, ignite you, and spark your desire for action.

2. You've been exploring your purpose: The really gritty people feel they have purpose in their life. As Angela Duckworth says, "What ripens passion is the conviction that your work matters. For most people, interest without purpose is nearly impossible to sustain for a lifetime."

3. You've been discovering hope: To believe in the potential for change, in a different future, in your power as the creator of a purposeful life, you have to have hope. Having hope doesn't mean you optimistically wish for something and sit around waiting for it to happen. You have hope because you know that you have the ability to make change happen.

Research actually shows that hope makes you more resilient in the face of challenges and failures, which is, as I mentioned, a major part of grit. And if negative self-talk was getting in the way of your hope, you've already spent time working to change that with the Shape Your Mind Guide. No more 'buts' Fabulous Traveler, remember?

There is yet another essential element to becoming gritty so you can live your purpose:

Practice.

We're more likely to stick to something we're good at, but it's pretty impossible to be good at something you haven't been doing yet. In fact, you'll probably be pretty bad at it. Living your purpose, whatever that may be, is a skill developed through deliberate, continuous work. And, lucky for you, it's an ever-improving cycle: deliberate, continuous work makes you grittier, and the grittier you are, the more you can sustain deliberate, continuous work!

You know what else? The more deliberate, continuous work you do, and the grittier you are, the easier it becomes to keep doing what you're doing. Your muscles gets stronger and you can carry more weight with ease!

So this week is all about practice Fabulous Traveler. You're going to get gritty, and discover exactly what that means to you.

This Week's Plan

Your one-time action

You’re going to do something right now to get ready. Below is a version of the Grit Scale questionnaire that Angela Duckworth developed for her study. When you’re ready, press ‘Start’, and you’ll discover just how much grit you have right now!

So now you know your grit score Fabulous Traveler. Is it more or less than you expected? According to Angela Duckworth “The maximum score on this scale is 5 (extremely gritty) and the lowest possible score is 1 (not at all gritty). Keep in mind that your score is a reflection of how you see yourself right now. How gritty you are at this point in your life might be different from how gritty you were when you were younger”.

It is also different from how gritty you’ll be, Fabulous Traveler.

Your goal

For the next 3 days, you’re going to use your Write in My Journal habit to decide exactly what Grit—mental toughness—means for you when you imagine living a purposeful life. Try to be as clear and specific as possible.

Does grit on your purpose journey mean committing to a goal of dedicating 30 minutes each day to a creative pursuit? Does it mean carving out an hour each evening for spending uninterrupted time with your loved ones? Perhaps it’s about connecting your passion to an ongoing community project that helps others? Maybe it’s not specific in terms of what you are doing, but the type of attention you bring to doing it. It could even be about simply giving a certain amount of time each day just to check in with yourself. It doesn’t need to be something big. It just needs to be something that brings meaning to your life, and which requires you to put your perseverance and passion into action.

When you’re ready, just hit Accept below Fabulous Traveler, and the Write in My Journal habit will continue to be a part of your evening routine.

What We Are Doing

The more time you spend focusing energy on your purpose, the more of a habit it becomes. And as you know Fabulous Traveler, habits help you build your grit, and grit allows you to persevere in your purpose no matter what obstacles stand in your way. They key is consistency!

So for now, just focus on what grit looks like to you in the context of living your most purposeful life. Next week you're going to test that grit in a challenge.

Talk to you soon Fabulous Traveler!

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed” — Michael Jordan