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WTF Is Grit And Why You Need It To Accomplish Your Goals

WTF is Grit? There are 3 values that are the most important to me. I call them my 3g’s. Grit. Gratitude. Grind. (I think The…

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WTF is Grit?
There are 3 values that are the most important to me.
I call them my 3g’s.

Grit. Gratitude. Grind.

(I think The Rock has something similar about gratitude and grind?)

My most sincere belief is that you need all 3 of these values working harmoniously in order to live 1.An authentic life and 2. Achieve the things you want to achieve, whether you call them dreams, goals, aspirations etc.

(This post is strictly about GRIT so stay tuned for a follow-up post about the other two! 🙂

If you’re totally lost in this, let me hit you with a dictionary definition:
Grit is the determination and perseverance of obstacles to obtain a long-term goal.

Now, let me set the scene. It was my first corporate job when I was 22.
I began working as a recruiter for a web marketing company and I was responsible for building their sales team along with three other recruiters. Within the first few weeks, I sat down with my Vice President of Sales and Revenue and asked him what any recruiter would ask a hiring manager, “What are you looking for in a potential candidate?” I was expecting him to come back with something like ‘someone with 2-3 years of experience’ ‘college educated’ ‘knowledge of XYZ software’ But instead, the first word out of his mouth was “grit.’ I stared at him blankly and I think he realized I didn’t know what he meant so he began to elaborate, “someone with tenacity, you know, someone who doesn’t give up with things get tough, someone who isn’t going to look at a wall as a roadblock but something to climb.”

I was still confused but went along with it until our meeting was over.

I dedicated the next year to developing questions and exercises to find out if candidates had grit. I would spend hours rewording our interview questions and researching for a more effective way to vet out my candidates for this “mysterious” characteristic. I would get into the office at 7am and leave after everyone else left, only to work from home until midnight. I was constantly on the phone with candidates; I would call them on my way home from work, I would talk to them while making dinner, I would call them on my lunch breaks. I was working 15-16 hour days. Looking back, I was a very intense person at this point in my life but it didn’t feel like work to me. I was simply doing what I had to do to succeed and this is what it looked like to me.

Each week I would bring a group of candidates to meet with my executive team. Some candidates got hired and some did not. I would ask for feedback from the executives and write it down in my notebook and how I could do things differently for the next round of candidates. In my eyes, if each candidate I brought in didn’t get hired, I had failed. Which, in retrospect, was a very unhealthy indicator of success to place on myself. (Ya’ live and ya’ learn!)

So every few months, I would edit my interview questions and rewire our recruiting process, hoping that this was finally the “formula” I had been working so diligently on. I was committed to my role and the value that I was adding to not only the company but with each candidate I spoke with.

A year flew by and the next thing I knew, I had developed a process to recruit some of the best candidates in our industry. There were a few other factors but I finally felt like I had fulfilled my purpose and submitted my resignation.

On my last day, I was doing my exit interview and my boss asked me, “So, do you think you have grit?” I gave him that same blank stare from our first meeting and said, “I’m not really sure, I mean I hope so.” He stood up to shake my hand and said, “You might not have been tuned into it on your first day but I have really seen you tune into your grit and potential.”

I was so busy with figuring out if our potential employees had enough ‘grit’ that I had developed my own grit in the process.

Now you’re probably like, “That’s a nice story Bree but like why should I care about grit?”

Idk, do you have goals? Do you have dreams? Do you have aspirations? Do you have a vision of what you want your life to look like?

Something tells me that you do.

Then you need grit to GET those things – whatever they may be.

Grit is having persistence.
Grit is being resilient.
Grit is pushing past whatever barriers are in front of you.
Grit is dedication.
Grit is being comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Grit is unwavering determination.
Grit is being okay failure because you can turn it into a learning experience. 

Listen, sis, life isn’t always going to be fair. You’ll have ex’s who will treat you better than life does. There will always be obstacles, excuses, haters, and you will fail.

 No tea, no shade – just facts!

The reality is that no one gets out of here unscathed. (Yes, even the uber-successful people! And I argue that some of the most successful people are the ones who fail the most/have incredible grit.)

So to go after whatever it is your going after, you must hold onto that vision in your head and pursue it with ferocious tenacity.

Now before you FREAK out and wonder if you have grit….

Grit is something that can be developed but it cannot be forced.

An easy example is let’s say you want to get an A in a math class. You can easily develop better math skills by repeating problems assigned by your teacher but grit is what is going to get you to sit down and actually do the work.(Don’t argue with me here either – I don’t care HOW bad you are at math, I’m worse and I’ve gotten A’s in math classes simply because I wanted it that bad.)

What I’m getting at here is that there has to be a goal or purpose behind a person in order for them to bring out that innate grit.

My intuition tells me that we ALL have the power to develop, we just have to find the ‘things’ that are WORTH it to us.

Without my experience at that web marketing company, I’m not sure if I would have ever found my grit.

If you want some more info on grit – watch this TedTalk.

Let me know in the comments down below what grit means to you! I wanna know!

65 comments

  3. Love this! You’re right on. I study excellence and high-achievers, and grit is a great word that describes a quality they all share – and it’s more important than talent. To me, grit is the willingness to do whatever it takes (within legal and ethical boundaries, of course) to reach your goal – the willingness to put in the work, to figure out a way under, over, around, or through the obstacles that inevitably come up, and the persistence to see it through, however long it takes. The difference between people who achieve their goals and live the life of their dreams and those who don’t usually comes down to grit.

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