Grit is defined by Angela Duckworth as an individual’s passion for a particular long-term goal or end state, coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve their respective objective. Underneath are 3 ways in which an entrepreneur can develop more grit.
- Practice
Deliberate practice means learning as you go, getting feedback from your experience as well as from others. Top musicians do this. I saw a Michael Jackson video some time back and he would practice for 16 hours plus to get it right. An entrepreneur needs to develop the staying power in practice.
Even if you get it wrong the first or even the tenth time, your learning curve is becoming more perfected. So practice! practice! practice! your craft.
- Purpose
Purpose is who and what you are. Without discovering it life is meaningless. Practice is useless if what you’re practicing is something you don’t feel purposeful about or can be highly interested in.
What’s important isn’t that you find some natural calling but instead, find something you are prepared to pursue for a very long time. For Michael Jackson, I saw an interview of his mother where she said as a boy he used to dance to the sound of the washing machine and he pursued music throughout his life as his call.
- Time
The last part of the grit formula is simply time. Take time to devote yourself to practice.
Having something you can be highly interested in, something you can deliberately practice and readily get feedback on, something where you hope that you can succeed, are all important. The key is, of course, giving yourself time to practice and learn and stay in the game.
There are some psychologists who believe that you need to put in 10,000 hours of practice to reach international levels of mastery. 10,000 hours is 3 hours a day for 10 years to reach global levels of mastery. So time and practice will add up to mastery.
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