High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 238: 3 Proven Ways to Develop More Grit

Episode Date: March 12, 2019

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill High performers know they can develop their grit. They pursue what interests them, and focus on their purpose. They remain hopeful and optimistic that they can make it better. Power Phrase this Week: “I am gritty. I cultivate my passion, perseverance and purpose.”

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff on The Country Club today. Good morning, Sindra. Good morning. It's great to be here. Thank you for a tweet you put out the other day that I actually took a screenshot of, because today is day one of high school track and field practice. Yes.

And the season begins. And I'm assuming baseball and softball are all looking at the same thing, too. And we're all thinking, when are we getting outside? But the tweet that you put out that I saved because I want to pass it along to the athletes that I coach when we get to practice on day one today was the one that said that a common misconception is that trying harder will lead to success. The truth is that it won't.

Instead, trust yourself in the process. Care more about executing the process than the score or your competition. Focus on the journey not the destination. I'm often telling kids, look, there's only one winner in every track and field event. There's only one out of, it doesn't matter if there's six or 60 people competing in an event, there's only one winner.

And so the best that you can possibly do is go out and try to do better than you've personally done every single time. And then the results start to happen after that. So focus best that you can possibly do is go out and try to do better than you've personally done every single time. And then the results start to happen after that. So focus on that. I also was pleasantly surprised to see the mental awareness and I guess the mental state of one of the Alabama Huntsville hockey players this weekend. They were getting beat by MSU on Saturday. Their season was coming to an end. It was the start of the third period.

There was a lot of language in and out of the penalty boxes for Alabama Huntsville this weekend that, you know, like every other word began with the sixth letter of the alphabet and then some other words were sprinkled in. They weren't happy about some of the referees

decisions and things like that. But as they were going out on the ice and everybody was a little bit crusty, one player I heard him mutter under his breath right before his skates hit the ice was, do your best and forget the rest. And bang, he hit the ice and was gone. And I thought, look at that kid. Wow. Good for him.

So all things that I was kind of like, okay, I got to bank these and remember this because those are great sayings to pass along. And you never know who's listening. Yeah, and who needs it at that moment. So today is a good one as well as we are beginning some spring sports or maybe you're starting a new job or, you know, you have some task to tackle. Three proven ways to develop grit is our topic for today. And we like to start with a quote. This is Winston Churchill.

He said, success is the ability to go from one like to start with a quote. This is Winston Churchill. He said, Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. That's awesome. Yep, because definitely we can learn from those failures. So you have an example to start with. So tonight I'm speaking in Lakeville for an event called Speaking for Kids. It's an educational seminar for parents and educators and others. And so I've been thinking a lot about grit and how it's developed.

My book is Beyond Grit, but I've been thinking quite a bit about how do we continue to develop grit in people. And we're also conducting a study at MSU about developing grit and how to do that. So I thought I would share with you a few things that I'm going to share tonight with the audience about how to develop grit. And I think it applies to us as adults, but to kids and those who we might mentor or lead. Perfect. So let's start with what is grit and why is it important? So grit means having passion and perseverance for your very long-term goals. So it means like

sticking with things in the long term. And why it's important is it's a strong predictor of success. So it's connected to things like happiness and life satisfaction. And it's important is it's a strong predictor of success. So it's connected to things like happiness and life satisfaction. And it's also connected to like retention and school and GPA, so academic performance. And it's connected to our job performance. So for example, grittier sales employees are more likely to keep their jobs. Grittier students are more likely to graduate. Grittier men are more likely to stay married that one's my favorite all right so there are three different things we're going to talk about

here today what's the first proven way to develop some more grit so the first way is to pursue what interests you and it's really hard to stick with something over the long haul if you don't care about it so the first step is is to be grittier, is to find something that really deeply interests you. But to really find what deeply interests you, we have to try things, right? And so our interest precedes the development of grit and even our talent. So you have to try things to figure out if it's perfect for you. And then once you decide, okay, yeah, this is something that I like, then I think the key is you got to practice and practice and practice at it, right? To stick with it.

But also what we know is finding a mentor or a teacher to help you develop that passion and skill is really important. So first, pursue what interests you. Find what that even is. All right. What's the second way to develop more grit? Second way is we're going to talk about purpose. And so we know by having a greater sense of meaning of your work helps you stay grittier. And it's not just important for

other people, like for you to think about what's important about your job and how it helps other people, but for you to think about others. For example, in a study of 16,000 people, there is a finding that grittier people are dramatically more motivated than others to seek a meaningful and other-centered life. Okay, so what that means is identifying how your work is really important to you is important, but at the same time, thinking about how it's connected to others and integral to others is really important. So even as you're driving to work, think about how you might positively impact others and how does your job help other people. All right. So what else is going to be important for us to do?

So the last thing that would help you develop more grit is your hope and optimism. OK, so let me explain. You have to believe things will improve because you're going to improve them. So meaning if you say, OK, I'm going to feel better tomorrow because it's tomorrow, right? It's better to say I will make tomorrow better. So if you feel like you are in the driver's seat of your happiness and your grit is really important. Research shows that people without hope, they don't stick with things. They quit earlier. They avoid challenges and they act hopeless. The key is to believe that you will improve tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be better because you're in the driver's seat. Interesting, though, because you say I will make tomorrow better, whereas maybe in a shorter term deal, like let's say you're in the middle of a marathon or a half marathon. Yeah. I'll feel better in a mile. Yes. That's what I would say to myself instead of I'll make the next mile better. Oh, you know, I think that we should tweak it when we're instead of, I'll make the next mile better. Ooh. So I think that we should tweak it when we're running. Maybe.

I'll make the next mile better. Maybe. But yeah, then the doubt creeps in right now. Then the ants are everywhere. It's a whole other topic for a whole other day. So how do we summarize today's topic of three proven ways to develop more grit? So I'd say high performers, they know that they can develop their grit. They pursue what interests them. They focus on their purpose and they remain hopeful and optimistic that they can make it better. And the power phrase for today?

I am gritty. I cultivate my passion, perseverance, and purpose. That is all of it in a nutshell right there. Just repeat it all the way to work in school today. That's good stuff right there from Dr. Sindra Kampoff with High Performance Mindset. If we want to get in touch with you, listen to the podcast or to the book, any of the things that you're out there doing, how do we get in touch? You can head over to Dr. Sindra, so D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A, and the book is over there, Beyond Grit, or you can get it on Amazon as well, and you can find the podcast on there as well. All right. Sounds good. Thank you very much much thanks for having me today thank you for listening to high performance mindset if you like today's podcast make a comment share it with a friend and join the conversation

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