High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 3: Get Grit: Having Passion, Perseverance, and Purpose for Your Long Term Goals

Episode Date: September 2, 2015

GRIT is having passion, perseverance and purpose for your long-terms goals. In this episode, Cindra shares a time she was gritty and discusses what grit is during an interview with radio hosts, TJ and Lisa. Then she provides 4 tips that will help you cultivate your grit. If you liked this episode, please share it with your friends. Cindra also sends free weekly mental tools, strategies and videos via email. You can subscribe at cindrakamphoff.com or by texting "Mentallystrong" (all one word) to 22828. Music provided by Bensound.com.  

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. Welcome high performers to High Performance Mindset. This is Syndra Kampoff, your host. And today's episode is sponsored by Worldwide Access Solutions Incorporated, a 24-hour clear advantage, a call center providing inbound and outbound services, and a licensed life and health insurance agency. You can visit them at wasi.com.

That's W-A-S-I dot com. To start this episode, I'd like to give you a big thank you for all the positive comments about the first three episodes of High Performance Mindset. I've been wanting to start a podcast for a while now, and I really appreciate all of the comments that you've sent my way and all of the ratings on iTunes and Stitcher Radio. So thank you so much for your comments and for your feedback thus far. I hope this podcast continues to inspire thousands and tens of thousands of people to reach their highest potential.

Today's topic is grit. This is one of my favorite topics within performance psychology, not only because it's a cool word, but because of what grit stands for and what it represents. You know, when I think about a time that I have been really gritty, I think back to high school. And when I think about my senior year in particular, it's a time that I was very gritty, I think back to high school. And when I think about my senior year in particular, it's a time that I was very gritty. I had gotten second a few times at state and cross country and in track, but I had never won a state championship. And I wanted really bad to win a state championship.

I grew up in Sheldon, Iowa. Even despite the terrible winters, ice, snow, sleet, I would be running every single day or after school. My friends were doing lots of other fun things. They weren't running. But every single day I stayed committed to that goal of winning a state championship. And during the year, during the season, I remember waking up in the mornings, going running before school. You know, and I remember waking up around 6 a.m., and sometimes I didn't want to wake up. You know, I'd rather just sleep in my bed. But I clearly remember dreaming about winning that state championship as motivation to get out of bed.

And so I would run my senior year, I'd run a two a day. And basically what that meant is I ran before school, I went to school, and then I ran at practice. I was incredibly gritty. I am proud to say I did win a state championship that year. I ran the fastest mile in the state of Iowa. What I mostly remember of that time was that I was very gritty. That I went after what I wanted and my dreams. And that led me to what I do now. If I wouldn't have been gritty that season,

I'm not sure I would have gone on to running college. I got a Fulbright College Scholarship to run Division I. So I wouldn't have done that. Grit is incredibly important. Important for our success. And that's the focus of today. And what we're going to do first is we're going to turn to a radio interview I did with radio hosts TJ and Lisa. We talked specifically about what grit really is and the research about why grit is so important. And this

research, much of it has been conducted by a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Her name is Angela Duckworth. So let's now turn to the radio interview with TJ and Lisa. Grit. I wore my grit shirt on a run with my kids the other day. Had mine on yesterday. Just in case there was any question about what we were doing and why we were out here. I said, we got our grit shirt on. You got to read my shirt when the going gets tough.

And you can't be a wimp if you got that on. That's right. Anyway, all of that aside, topic number one is they are gritty. So grit is the topic of the first conversation in top 10 traits of high performers. I put this list or this grit as number one for a reason. Because I think that if you're not gritty, it's difficult to know what you want and go after what you want. And the way I describe grit is I include three P words

that are my definition of grit. So that means they have persistence, they have passion, and then they have purpose. So passion, persistence, or perseverance and purpose for their very long-term goals. And we know that gritty people kind of stick to their future, and they don't just do it for an hour or for a day or for a month. I mean, years after years, they're focusing on their future, and they know what they want.

And they dig deep to get what they want. So these three P words, the first one, I said persistence, but perseverance is really the word that I wanted to use. And that's very similar word. But perseverance means that you know what you want. And a lot of people don't get what they want because they really haven't spent time thinking about what they want. Having perseverance means that you keep going despite the obstacles that are going to get in your way. Because we know there's things that are going to get in the way of your goals.

But greedy people focus on what they want despite that. They keep on going. Passionate means that they love it. They just enjoy the pursuit of going after what they want. And this passion really contributes like a powerful source of motivation. And they have purpose. So they know why they want to go after it and why they want to accomplish these goals. Because if you don't really know why, then it's really difficult to stay focused on it,

despite the things that are going to get in your way. It just makes so much sense. It does. It does. But sticking to it, I was thinking of that, you know, like with purpose. Okay, what's my focus? My purpose, I'm going to achieve. My goal is to achieve this.

And what I first thought of was, okay, maybe my goal is to achieve, you know, some sort of financial success, let's say, you know, earn a certain amount of money. Well, that's a lofty goal and it's a long ways away. So there has to be baby step goals along the way to get to that, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's pretty fascinating to me, the research that actually shows how powerful grit is. And the first thing is that grit. So going after what you want, it actually is correlated with happiness and life satisfaction and positive affect, which is basically means like positive mood. Right.

So people who are gritty are happier, they're more satisfied with their life. And then there's this whole like body of research about achievement. It predicts their academic performance at like really elite universities. It predicts retention. It predicts retention. It predicts performance in the National Spelling Bee. And it predicts teacher effectiveness. Oh.

Which grittier salespeople are more likely to get the job. And grittier men are more likely to stay married. Really? Interesting. Okay. So get out there and be gritty today, ladies and gentlemen. Persevere, have passion and purpose in the day-to-day. That's is on my website. If you just type in your email address on the opt-in form at cindracampoff.com, I'll send you that list via email. A few months ago, I was providing a keynote talk to a group of counselors and I was discussing grit

and one of them asked me, can you actually develop grit? And I answered, absolutely. And today we're going to talk about four tips that could help you cultivate your grit. The first tip is that we have to dream big. You know, when I think back to that time I told you about when I was in high school, I had a big dream of winning a state championship. And the reason why big dreams are really important is because we need something that moves us. We need goals that stretch us to really flourish and to really feel alive and get what we want out of our lives. And if you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable right now,

you're actually going to disconnect yourself from what you can truly do the impact that you can truly make because when we dream big what we do is we grow every day to reach that dream and if you continue to listen and I hope you do the other episodes of high performance mindset I will be interviewing people about their big dreams because it's important that we have these big dreams that move us. You know, my favorite quote is, if your dreams don't scare you, they aren't big enough. And so we always have to have dreams that move us, that exceed our current capacity to actually achieve them so that we stretch ourselves. And if you start with just a small dream, you're not going to push yourself to truly reach your full potential. So my first tip is dream big.

And then the second tip is we have to ink our goals. You know, you've probably at some point in your life heard about the importance of actually writing your goals down. When I go and give talks to either athletic teams or businesses or entrepreneurs and I ask them, how many of you have your yearly goals written down? It amazes me, you know, how the number of people that do not write their goals down. I would say in any given audience, it's maybe 10%. When we write it down, we provide a different level of commitment to ourselves and for what we really want to go after. Ink it, write it down with a paper and pencil or in your computer somewhere where you actually write your goals out. And it's better to do it in a measurable way. So by the end of the time frame, you know if you've accomplished it or not. A measurable goal is going to keep you more on target. And in December, I wrote several types of goals out. I wrote my one

year, my five year, my 10 year, and my 20 year goals. And actually doing this exercise blew my mind away. Every client I work with now, those are the types of goals that we set. So I'd encourage you to really think long term, but also think-term. If you're an athlete listening to this podcast, you absolutely need your season goals written down somewhere. I would also write down your career goals. What do you want to do in your career? Inking this helps you keep yourself accountable. Because if you just think about the goals that you want to achieve tomorrow, you can change your mind. But if you write them down, that's a different level commitment to yourself.

Ink it and then post those goals somewhere you can see them every single day. Maybe on your refrigerator, by your bedside, in your locker if you're an athlete. If you're a business owner, it needs to be right by your computer. Somewhere you can see them every single day so my second tip is ink your goals my third tip is invest five minutes every day thinking about your goals and so it's really important that you spend some time every day thinking about what you want in your future i would encourage you to take five minutes at the same time every day perhaps as part of your morning routine,

maybe when you're getting ready in the morning or when you're eating breakfast or drinking your coffee, or perhaps as you're walking to practice, thinking about what you want and really why that you want it. And so spend some time thinking about that why as well, because when you really know your why, then you can figure out any how, right? You can figure out any strategy when you know why you want to do it. So tip three is invest five minutes every single day thinking about what you want and why you want it. All right, last tip, fourth tip is we have to expect setbacks along the way.

There's always going to be bumps in the road. There's always going to be things that get in our way of our goals. But gritty people recognize that. In fact, research shows that if you plan for your setbacks, you're more likely to persist. So planning for what's going to get in your way is a key factor in your success. And if you do this, you know, I think that you're going to be able to handle pretty much anything that comes your way. Because you're going to be able to expect it and then know how you're going to respond. You've already planned out your response when things get in your way, when things don't go perfectly. Number four is expect setbacks. So as you're

writing down your goals for the season, maybe you're going to make this commitment of writing your one and your five and your 10 and your 20 year goals like I did in December. When you write those out, write also a few notes about what could get in your way and then how you plan to respond to that. Thank you so much for joining me today on this episode about grit. Again, grit is having passion, perseverance, and purpose for what you want long term. And today we talked about four tips to help you cultivate your grit. Tip one was to make sure you dream big. Number two was to ink your goals. Make sure you write those goals down. Tip three was invest five minutes every day thinking about your goals and why you're passionate about it.

And tip four is expect setbacks along the way. Because high performers work hard every day to reach their goals. They go the extra mile because they are gritty and they view life and the pursuit of greatness not as a once in a while activity, but an every single day activity. They are focused on what they want with passion, with perseverance, and with purpose.

So thank you so much for joining me today. If you liked today's episode, if you could just take 30 seconds to go over to iTunes or Stitcher Radio or wherever you're listening to this podcast and please give me a rating. Tell me what you think about this podcast so that we can reach more high performers like you. Go after what they want. Make it an incredible week more high performers like you. Go after what they want.

Make it an incredible week, high performers. It's your time. Go after what you want and be mentally strong. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. Are you signed up for Sindra's weekly email with free mental tools and strategies for high performance? Why the heck not? up for syndra's weekly email with free mental tools and strategies for high performance