{"id":22516,"date":"2021-01-03T18:49:29","date_gmt":"2021-01-03T22:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=22516"},"modified":"2021-01-08T21:57:01","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T01:57:01","slug":"characteristics-of-grit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/characteristics-of-grit\/","title":{"rendered":"The 4 Characteristics of Grit &#038; What They Mean"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What are the characteristics of grit? How can you learn to have more grit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are four defining characteristics of grit: interest, practice, purpose, and hope. You can work on improving these characteristics to have more grit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep reading to find out the characteristics of grit and how you can have more of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Characteristics of Grit<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019re not as gritty as you want to be, ask yourself why. Common reasons people lack either passion or perseverance include the following complaints:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>What I\u2019m doing is boring.<\/li><li>I\u2019m not getting anything from my effort.<\/li><li>What I\u2019m doing isn\u2019t important.<\/li><li>I\u2019m not capable of doing this, so I should give it.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In contrast, the very gritty tend to give up for the above reasons less. There are <strong>four psychological assets<\/strong> that paragons of grit have in common:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Interest: enjoy what you\u2019re doing<\/li><li>Practice: conduct <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/deliberate-practice-definition\/\">deliberate practice<\/a> to improve on your weaknesses and continuously improve<\/li><li>Purpose: believe that your work matters and improves the lives of others<\/li><li>Hope: believe in your capacity for achievement and ability to overcome difficulties&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Each asset directly addresses the corresponding complaints above it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are the four characteristics of grit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Interest<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The first concept in knowing how to have grit is interest. Being interested by your pursuit is the beginning of developing grit. Paragons of grit say, &#8220;I love what I do. I can\u2019t wait to get on with the next project.&#8221; They\u2019re doing things not because they\u2019re forced to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Grit cannot <em>truly<\/em> exist without interest. <strong>People who are not intrinsically interested in an activity will not work as hard or achieve as much as people who are.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Practice<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The next obstacle to developing grit is the feeling that you\u2019re not making any progress. Even if you\u2019re interested in a task, if you put in a lot of time and don\u2019t feel you\u2019re getting reward, it\u2019s hard to keep persevering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The way to guarantee progress with your time is to conduct <strong>deliberate practice<\/strong>. This is a structured, disciplined way to put in time and get results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Purpose<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have interest in your work and conduct deliberate practice, you\u2019ll make progress. But ultimately, if you don\u2019t believe your work matters and contributes things of value, you will find it difficult to maintain your work for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This leads to the third component of grit: purpose. Purpose, as defined here, is <strong>&#8220;the intention to contribute to the well-being of others.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Hope<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Grit depends on hope that you have the power to improve things.<\/strong> Hope sustains passion by giving <strong>optimism that one day you can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/steps-to-achieve-your-goals\/\">achieve your goals<\/a><\/strong>, and thus they\u2019re worth holding for long periods of time. Hope sustains perseverance by encouraging thinking about <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-overcome-setbacks\/\">how to overcome setbacks<\/a><\/strong>, rather than just accepting them as permanent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With these characteristics, you can learn how to have grit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What are the characteristics of grit? How can you learn to have more grit? There are four defining characteristics of grit: interest, practice, purpose, and hope. You can work on improving these characteristics to have more grit. Keep reading to find out the characteristics of grit and how you can have more of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,9,43],"tags":[181],"class_list":["post-22516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motivation","category-psychology","category-self-improvement","tag-grit","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The 4 Characteristics of Grit &amp; What They Mean - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The characteristics of grit are interest, practice, purpose, and hope. You can develop more grit by working on these four components.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/characteristics-of-grit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The 4 Characteristics of Grit &amp; What They Mean\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The characteristics of grit are interest, practice, purpose, and hope. 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