Grit v's Resilience: The key to achieving success

Resilience and grit are two important psychological traits that play crucial roles in helping individuals navigate challenges, setbacks, and uncertainties in life. They are valuable skills increasingly recognised by psychologists for their contribution to wellbeing, engagement and performance. It has been said that grit is the engine that moves us toward our goal and resilience is the oil that keeps the engine moving.

Resilience: Resilience can be defined as the ability to bounce back, adapt, and thrive in the face of adversity or significant stress. It involves harnessing internal and external resources to withstand and recover from difficult experiences, whether they be personal, professional, or environmental. Resilience is not a fixed trait but rather a dynamic process that can be cultivated and strengthened over time through various coping mechanisms, support systems, and adaptive strategies.

Grit: Grit is the combination of passion and perseverance towards long-term goals, even in the face of obstacles, setbacks, or failures. Coined by psychologist Angela Duckworth, grit emphasises the sustained effort and commitment required to pursue and achieve challenging objectives. It involves having a clear sense of purpose, maintaining focus and determination, and exhibiting resilience in the pursuit of one's passions and ambitions. Gritty individuals are characterised by their unwavering dedication, resilience, and willingness to persist despite difficulties.

Both resilience and grit are qualities that can be nurtured and honed, offering a beacon of hope for those steering their teams through turbulent water.

— anon

Let's delve further into these concepts, delineating their nuances and exploring how they intertwine.

Resilience: Flexing the Muscle of Adaptability
Resilience, fundamentally, is an outcome—a testament to one's ability to rebound, readjust, and thrive in the face of adversity. It's the art of bouncing back in a healthy, constructive manner, shaping a path forward despite the hurdles encountered along the way.
While genetics, personality traits, and social factors play a role in resilience, it's essential to recognise that resilience is not a fixed attribute. Rather, it's a skill set that can be cultivated and refined over time, irrespective of inherent predispositions.
Research illuminates five key pillars underpinning resilience:

1. Seeking Help: Embracing support networks and reaching out when needed.
2. Resourcefulness: Cultivating problem-solving skills to navigate challenges.
3. Positive Self-Belief: Fostering a robust sense of self-efficacy and optimism.
4. Social Support: Nurturing connections with friends, family, and peers.
5. Community Engagement: Establishing ties with broader networks for collective strength.

It's crucial to recognise that resilience is context-dependent, fluctuating across different spheres of life. One may exhibit resilience in professional realms while grappling with personal adversities—a testament to the dynamic nature of this trait.

Grit: The Fuel for Long-Term Pursuits
Complementing resilience is grit—a driving force propelling individuals towards long-term goals with unwavering passion and perseverance. Angela Duckworth's seminal work highlights grit as the amalgamation of passion and endurance, underscoring the essence of sustained effort amidst setbacks.
Grit isn't a privilege reserved for the naturally gifted; rather, it's a mindset rooted in the belief that talents can be cultivated through dedication and resilience. Duckworth delineates six pivotal components of grit:

1. Effort: Committing to rigorous, sustained exertion towards goals.
2. Precision: Cultivating meticulousness and attention to detail.
3. Passion: Fostering fervent devotion to endeavors.
4. Ritual: Establishing routines conducive to progress.
5. Prioritisation: Discerning and focusing on essential tasks.
6. Hope: Harnessing optimism to navigate challenges and envision a brighter future.

Reflecting on these facets empowers individuals and teams to discern strengths and areas ripe for development, charting a course towards enhanced resilience and grit.

Strategies for reinvention
Here are some actionable strategies to help you and your teams reset and refocus:

Goal realignment: Reevaluate goals through the lens of values, passion, and meaning, fostering alignment across short-term objectives and long-term aspirations.
Embracing failure: Extract insights from setbacks, reframing challenges as stepping stones towards growth and learning.
Drawing from experience: Reflect on past instances of resilience and grit, leveraging lessons learned to navigate current difficulties.
Combatting burnout: Set realistic goals, celebrate incremental victories, and prioritise self-care to avert burnout amidst relentless demands.
Cultivating balance: Prioritise physical well-being through exercise, relaxation, and mindfulness practices, fostering resilience amidst turbulent times.
Self-compassion: Embrace self-compassion, relinquishing the pressure of relentless striving, and savoring moments of joy amidst the journey.

For organisations seeking to fortify resilience and grit within their ranks, tailored programs offer invaluable support. Enmasse, a pioneer in resilience training, offers various workshops and online sessions, where participants will be provided with some helpful tools to recognise and manage some of the signs that ongoing stress may be impacting their mental wellbeing, particularly in the context of sustained periods of community and personal challenges.

Our training is designed to assist participants to deal more optimally with work pressure, uncertainty, isolation, grief, feelings of anxiety and exhaustion. We cover the topics of feeling anxious (and why this is normal), understanding what is happening in our minds and bodies, including our physiological emotions, and why we can sometimes feel overwhelmed and exhausted. We will also touch on what the research tells us about the benefits of self-compassion and mindfulness. The session will provide some tools and techniques for being gentle with yourself, while placing your wellbeing and positive social support structures at the centre of your commitments.

Key learning outcomes:

• Identify any feelings of anxiety, fatigue and how these can be linked to factors such as significant/ongoing change, uncertainty or isolation
• Draw linkages between their emotional or stress responses and what is going on in the brain (in the context of neuroscience)
• Apply some tools for exercising self-compassion and maintaining a balanced approach towards healthy thinking, managing difficult emotions and activating healthy behaviours
• Apply some tools to help expand locus of control
• Identify the impacts of burnout and apply some techniques to prevent it
• Access the appropriate professional help and support when needed

If you would like further information on how our evidence based expertly delivered sessions can benefit you and your teams, please contact us at enquiries@enmasse2.com

Learn more

References:
Ackerman CE (2020). What is resilience and why is it important to bounce back? [Accessed 2 October 2020 from positivepsychology.com]
Grit And Resilience: Qualities Everyone Needs For Life’s Curveballs (forbes.com)
Southwick SM, Bonanno GA, Masten AS, Panter-Brick C, Yehuda R (2014). Resilience definitions, theory, and challenges: interdisciplinary perspectives. European journal of psychotraumatology, 5, 10.3402/ejpt.v5.25338.
Are You Constantly Struggling? Try Grit | Psychology TodayDuckworth AL, Peterson C, Matthews MD, Kelly DR (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087–1101.
Dweck C (2015). Carol Dweck revisits the growth mindset. Education Week, 35(5), 20-24.
Katz L (2020). Building grit in this pandemic. Psychology Today [Accessed 5 October 2020 from psychologytoday.com]
Schindler, J. (2023, Sep 20). Grit And Resilience: Qualities Everyone Needs For Life’s Curveballs. Forbes Coaches Council. [Accessed from forbes.com]