Grit, says the psychologist Angela Duckworth in her 2013 bestseller, is the hallmark of high achievers in every domain. It is a combination of passion and perseverance for a singularly important goal – something that may sound familiar to runners, athletes, or anyone focused on achieving big dreams..
Duckworth is co-founder of the Character Lab, a nonprofit that uses her research to support children’s development, and created the GRIT calculator to see quickly how we measure up on the grit spectrum.
I heard about the GRIT Calculator on the Trail Runner Nation Podcast’s interview with Courtney Dauwalter. If any athlete is synonymous with grit, it’s Courtney. Dauwalter is the undisputed queen of women’s endurance running, with her stable of 200-mile victories crowned with last year’s UTMB title. She famously continued running the Run Rabbit Run 100-miler after falling twice and going unconscious.
So how did she score? An impressive 4.4 out of 5.
After hearing the podcast, I wanted to know where I fell on the grit scale. I think of myself as a fairly tenacious person – I’ve toiled for years on a yet-to-be-published book, persevered through a 50-mile trail race, and endured through nine years of grad school.
When I took the grit test, though, I scored 3.5 – which puts me just below the average of all Americans for grit. At first this seemed wrong – how could I be less gritty than the average American?
It turned out that my low scores came from items that reflect a desire for newness and creativity, such as setting a goal and later choosing a different one. I confess to a somewhat short attention span in my creative endeavors – in addition to that book in progress, my creative history is littered with a zillion half-finished screenplays, novels, nonprofit ideas, websites, and various other crazy schemes.
I embrace this part of myself, but as I grow I’m trying to devote my energy in more focused ways – such as my book and this website – and to not let the glittering appeal of new shiny endeavors distract me too much.
For me, running is a safe sandbox to build grit. The rewards are high, but the stakes are low – or more accurately, they are mine and mine alone. No other person suffers if, say, I don’t break my P.R in this year’s Dead Horse, or if I don’t complete the 100K race I’ve signed up for this summer. If I do achieve those goals, though, I’ve shown myself just how powerful building my grit can be.
Just as running is a metaphor for life, the skills we build in the running sandbox are applicable to other areas of our life. I use the gritty skills and habits I’ve developed through running to help me take on and persevere through big tasks and achieve my grand dreams.
In the comments section below, let us know what the GRIT test told you? Does it reflect your grit? How have you built your grit up over time? And how has running assisted in that growth?
