Growth mindset for building grit

In education, the one thing we know how to measure best is IQ. But what if doing well in school and in life (or work) depends on much more than your ability to learn quickly and easily?

A research team going around asking private companies, Who is successful here and why? Which of these salespeople is going to keep their jobs? And who's going to earn the most money? In all those very different contexts, one characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. It wasn't good looks, physical health, and it wasn't IQ. It was grit.

Grit is passion and perseverance for a very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality.

Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint.

The most shock thing about grit is how little we know, how little science knows, about building it. "How do I build grit in my team members? What do I do to teach team members a solid work ethic? How do I keep them motivated for the long run?" The honest answer is, I don't know. What expert do know is that talent doesn't make you gritty. Their data show very clearly that there are many talented individuals who simply do not follow through on their commitments. Their data also revealed that grit is usually unrelated or even inversely related to measured of talent.

So for, the best idea about building grits in team members is something called "growth mindset". This is an idea developed at Standford University by Carol Dweck, and it is the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed, that is can change with your effort. Dr Dweck has shown that when people read and learn about the brain and how it changes and grows in response to challenge, they're much more likely to persevere when they failed, because they don't believe that failure is a permanent condition.

So growth mindset is a great idea for building grit. But we need more. And that's where I'm going to end my remarks because that's where we are. That's the work that stands before us. We need to take our best ideas, our strongest intuitions, and we need to test them. We need to measure whether we've been successful, and we have to be willing to fail, to be wrong, to start over again with lessons learned.

In other words, we need to be gritty about getting ourselves, our team members grittier.

Source: Angela L Duckworth


Here are 7 tips to foster grit for adults who aspire to grittiness, how to grow your own grit.

Tip #1: Encourage Practice

Even better, encourage challenging practice. Practice shouldn’t rehash a skill in which you’re already competent; aim for something one step above your current abilities. Practice makes perfect.

Tip #2: Praise Effort, Not Outcome

When we praise someone with, “Perfect!,” or “Great job,” their exertion dries up—there’s nowhere left to go. Instead, praise effort: “That must have taken a lot of work to be so great.” Or, “You worked really hard on that!”

Tip #3: Teach That Frustration and Confusion are Signs of Progress

The thoughts, “Frustration means it’s time to quit,” or “Since I’m confused, I probably can’t do it,” should be replaced with. “Getting frustrated is a normal part of learning something hard,” or “If I’m confused, that means I’m figuring it out.” Offer these re-frames when you hear those first exasperated sighs and grumbles of frustration.

Along the same lines, offer support, but don’t swoop in to rescue someone at the first sign of struggle. As long as eventual success is within reach, allow that person to labor over those stubborn logics or troublesome formula, and reinforce the struggle as a part of learning.

Tip #4: Teach Courage

Courage is closely aligned with grit. Courage isn’t merely doing challenging things--it’s being afraid, and then digging in your heels and trying anyway. In other words, fear is a prerequisite to courage. Right Cik Dayah?

To apply this, when your team member say they’re scared, tell them, “You can do scary things.” Then, the next time you need to submit that manuscript or get that mammogram, tell yourself the same.

Tip #5: Encourage Long-Term Commitment

The specific activity—accounting, bookkeeping, animation, JAVA coding —doesn’t matter as much as the effort. Let team member try out different activities until they find one they love and want to stick with. And by ‘try out,’ I don’t mean one lesson: ask them to hang in there for the season or the semester. If, after that, the activity really isn’t a match for them, don’t re-register--but do ask them to try something else. Right Mr Sim?

Tip #6: The Growth Mindset

This concept has been all over popular psychological science recently, but it bears repeating.

In short, in a fixed mindset, people believe that their intelligence or abilities are set traits that render them successes or failures, regardless of effort. However, in a growth mindset, adult learn that their intelligence or abilities can be developed through—you guessed it—gritty hard work and perseverance.

So, teach your team member that the brain is like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it gets. Initial failures and struggles are just the brains pumping iron on the way to success.

Tip #7:  Grit Won’t Apply to Every Situation

Adults won’t be particularly gritty at something they hate. So don’t overstate grit as the cure for hating English lesson or hating accounting —grit is about hanging in there for the passion, not about, “you’re going to do it no matter what, and you’re going to like it.” Passion increases grit, but grit allows adults to pursue their passion. What is your passion Pasti Nyalain?