<div class="bbWrapper">Great advice from Jean-Pierre.<br />
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The Freakonomics podcast on this was really good. Like, Jean-Pierre, I have not read the book, but the key takeaway for me from the podcast was that in order to have grit, you must be interested in what you are doing. You don't necessarily even have to be passionate about it, but you must find it interesting, meaning that you want to learn more about the details. Everything gets boring at some point, but those with grit tend to be interested in learning about the nuances of their subject. <br />
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The other point from the author in the podcast was that the questionairre's don't really represent us well. You can game them and the answer will change depending upon your mood or what you area of life you are thinking about it. Don't put too much stock in them.<br />
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I am a newbie to this forum and I don't have the answers, but I do think that if you are really interested in your project, you will find ways to push through obstacles and succeed so find something interesting.<br />
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Another thought is to try writing out a WOOP each day as you start. It's a simple technique to keep yourself motivated. <br />
<br />
Wish:<br />
Opportunity:<br />
Obstacles:<br />
Plan:<br />
<br />
Here's the website: <a href="http://www.woopmylife.org/" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">http://www.woopmylife.org/</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://freakonomics.com/podcast/grit/" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">Here's the freakonomics podcast</a>: <a href="http://freakonomics.com/podcast/grit/" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">http://freakonomics.com/podcast/grit/</a><br />
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Best,<br />
<br />
Matt<br />
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Firstly, a book cannot tell you whether you are going to be successful or not. It can tell you that these are the qualities of "successful" people but it cannot see into the future and determine yours. And secondly, success is defined differently by different people - One person might think making 1 billion dollars is success , another might think being free to make their own choices is success. Create your definition of success and work towards that and no one else's.<br />
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I haven't read the book but I did listen to an interview on the Freakanomics podcast with the author and I remember listening to the questions they asked to determine "grit" and to be honest, I was thinking the same thing as you since I theoretically got a low score as well. But then when I really thought about it I was answering those questions based on times in my life where I was not passionate about what I was doing, like school and university and my corporate job... Of course I'm not going to have any 'grit'!!! I wasn't passionate about the process or outcome. Now I'm not suggesting to only do the things you love, rather do things for the reason you love. What drives me with what I do now is that I'm doing it to live a certain lifestyle ("my success") which I am passionate about. Sure some of the things I have to do to get there are boring and monotonous but what keeps me going is that I know I'm working towards my version of success.<br />
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If I did the questionnaire again now I think I'd probably still get a low score (because I outsource anything I don't want to do) but who gives a shit, I'm successful in my world so who cares what a book told me.<br />
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But I do have a few tips for you from my own experiences:<br />
- <b>Don't do projects just for moneys sake</b> and that you have no interest in or don't 100000% believe in. Some people make it work but if you already know your personality is more defensive than offensive then I'd say find another project.<br />
- <b>Re-learn how to learn and do things. </b>I'm really generalising here - but I'm assuming people who give up easily are very outcome focused (I only say this because that's how I was, and still kinda am, but that's part of my journey). It's easy to say don't focus on the outcome, but that means absolutely nothing to most people, especially if you're outcome focused. Understand that the outcome is made up of many tiny little steps <u>that anyone can learn and do</u>, you just have to understand how to learn how to do them and how to put them together.<br />
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<b>One word - Experience.</b> There's nothing anyone can say to you to stop you from second guessing yourself. Only you can tell you-you are right (or at least make you think you're right <img src="/community/imgs/emoticons/em-tongue.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":p" title="Stick Out Tongue :p" data-shortname=":p" />). My only suggestion would be to understand the risks of your decision, minimise the risk, and then just do it - learn from it and then make the next decision. Knowing, or even better, minimising the risk takes the edge off "making the right decision" and then you spend more time doing and experiencing, and less time thinking about, thinking about making a decision. There's no secret formula to this one, you just have to experience it and figure it out for yourself.<br />
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Don't be too hard on yourself buddy. Life isn't as hard as we make it out to be and you should give yourself more credit that you think. Keep up the good work!
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