Challenge 05 - Grit
Could grit enhance your wellbeing?
Today's challenge is to understand how grit might enhance your wellbeing.
So what is grit? Grit is the tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals in the face of challenges and failures1. You may know already that grit predicts greater success in Ivy League undergraduates, West Point cadets, and US National spelling bee winners, but it turns out that grit is good for your wellbeing also.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, grit was shown to buffer against psychological distress during Pandemics with research examining grit and gratitude before the pandemic found that grit predicted significantly greater pandemic resilience2. A cross-cultural study of grit in college students labeled three distinct characteristics of grit: perseverance of effort, adaptability to situations, and consistency of interest. Of the three domains, perseverance and adaptability positively predicted flourishing and reported a strong negative association between grit and mental health issues, including depression and anxiety.
So grit & interest consistency are capable of buffering psychological distress; therefore, gritty individuals are predicted to better adapt to the pandemic3.
So how can we build more grit? Five areas to consider:
Foster your curiosity. Find the things that fascinates you the most.
Keep turning up, even if things get tricky.
Align your passion to a greater purpose or rolled-up goal.
Cultivate hope and self-belief that you can learn new things.
Shape your environment and surround yourself with gritty peers.
Have you ever wondered how gritty you are? Take the grit scale test grit-scale
Question - Can you think of ways to develop your grit today?
Reference
1. Grit. Duckworth et al., 2007.
2. Stress and wellbeing in college students during the COVID-19 pandemic: Can grit and gratitude help? 2020. Bono, G., Reil, K., & Hescox, J. (2020).
3. Interest Consistency Can Buffer the Effect of COVID-19 Fear on Psychological Distress. 2021. A.Masuyama, T. Kubo, D.Sugawara & Y.Chishima )
Further reading
Read: Signs you have grit www.time.com
Watch: 5 ways to develop grit positive psychology
Listen: Angela Ductworth www.michellemcquaid.com
** Disclaimer – Part of the Fresh Start Effect / Build Your Ideal Day Program by Duncan Young. All content and media on the Build Your Ideal Day Website is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice and should not be relied on as health or personal advice.
