1. You have to make mistakes, look like an idiot, and try
again, without even flinching. In a recent study at the College of William and
Mary, they interviewed over 800 entrepreneurs and found that the most
successful among them tend to have two critical things in common: They’re
terrible at imagining failure and they tend not to care what other people think
of them. In other words, the most successful entrepreneurs put no time or
energy into stressing about their failures as they see failure as a small and
necessary step in the process of reaching their goals.
2. You have to fight when you already feel defeated. A
reporter once asked Muhammad Ali how many sit-ups he does every day. He
responded, “I don’t count my sit-ups, I only start counting when it starts
hurting, when I feel pain, cause that’s when it really matters.” The same
applies to success in the workplace. You always have two choices when things
begin to get tough: you can either overcome an obstacle and grow in the process
or let it beat you. Humans are creatures of habit. If you quit when things get
tough, it gets that much easier to quit the next time. On the other hand, if
you force yourself to push through it, the grit begins to grow in you.
3. You have to make the calls you’re afraid to make.
Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do because we know they’re for
the best in the long-run: fire someone, cold call a stranger, pull an
all-nighter to get the company server back up, or scrap a project and start
over. It’s easy to let the looming challenge paralyze you, but the most
successful people know that in these moments, the best thing they can do is to
get started right away. Every moment spent dreading the task subtracts time and
energy from actually getting it done. People that learn to habitually make the
tough calls stand out like flamingos in a flock of seagulls.
4. You have to keep your emotions in check. Negative
emotions will challenge your grit every step of the way. While it’s impossible
not to feel your emotions, it’s completely under your power to manage them
effectively and to keep yourself in a position of control. When you let your
emotions overtake your ability to think clearly, it’s easy to lose your
resolve. A bad mood can make you lash out or stray from your chosen direction
just as easily as a good mood can make you overconfident and impulsive.
5. You have to trust your gut. There’s a fine line between
trusting your gut and being impulsive. Trusting your gut is a matter of looking
at decisions from every possible angle, and when the facts don’t present a
clear alternative, you believe in your ability to choose; you go with what
looks and feels right.
6. You have to give more than you get in return. There’s a
famous Stanford experiment where an administrator leaves a child in a room with
a marshmallow for 15 minutes, telling the child that she’s welcome to eat the
marshmallow, but if she can wait until the experimenter gets back without
eating it, she will get a second marshmallow. The children that were able to
wait until the experimenter returned experienced better outcomes in life,
including higher SAT scores, greater career success, and even lower body mass
indexes. The point being that delay of gratification and patience are essential
to success. People with grit know that real results only materialize when you
put in the time and forego instant gratification.
7. You have to lead when no one else follows. It’s easy to
set a direction and believe in yourself when you have support, but the true
test of grit is how well you maintain your resolve when nobody else believes in
what you’re doing. People with grit believe in themselves no matter what and
they stay the course until they win people over to their way of thinking.
8. You have to meet deadlines that are unreasonable and
deliver results that exceed expectations. Successful people find a way to say
yes and still honor their existing commitments. They know the best way to stand
out from everyone else is to outwork them. For this reason, they have a
tendency to over deliver, even when they over promise.
9. You have to focus on the details even when it makes your
mind numb. Nothing tests your grit like mind-numbing details, especially when
you’re tired. The more people with grit are challenged, the more they dig in
and welcome that challenge, and numbers and details are no exception to this.
10. You have to be kind to people who have been rude to you.
When people treat you poorly, it’s tempting to stoop to their level and return
the favor. People with grit don’t allow others to walk all over them, but that
doesn’t mean they’re rude to them, either. Instead, they treat rude and cruel
people with the same kindness they extend to anyone else, because they won’t
allow another person’s negativity to bring them down.
11. You have to be accountable for your actions, no matter
what. People are far more likely to remember how you dealt with a problem than
they are how you created it in the first place. By holding yourself
accountable, even when making excuses is an option, you show that you care
about results more than your image or ego.
