Get Grit

Actual Food or Desert - Can You Tell?

Recently I was on a cross country flight and I was watching an episode of the National Kids Baking Championship. After watching one episode,  I’m hooked.  It’s about 6 kids, ages 10-12 that can bake.  Not the typical cake mix from the box kind of baking, but the kind of baking that you have no recipes cards to follow.  Challenges are given to the contestants.  The particular episode I was watching featured a challenge called Dessert Impostors.  The kids had to make desserts similar to the picture above.  Yes – that’s a dessert.  These kids came up with hamburgers made out of cupcakes split in half and a brownie for the burger.  The tomato was a string of red licorice rolled up in a spiral to look like a tomato slice, the lettuce was coconut dyed green, etc.  The French fries were apple slices that were fried!  Each kid make a different “dish.”  At times it seemed that the kids weren't going to pull it off.  Someone had their cookies turn out awful and then they realized that they used too much butter.  That didn’t stop them.  They threw the batch out and in 15 minutes left.  They made a better batch. Each of the contestants had something besides brains and talent. 

They had grit!  

Grit is a powerful perserverance to achieve a goal.  It can be associated with resilience, ambition, determination.  But how did they develop grit at such a young age?  Aren’t they afraid to fail?  Dr. Carol S. Dweck has develop the concept of grit further in a book called “Mindset.”  Dr. Dweck describes mindset this way in her book.  Grit and a growth mindset are considered by many to be the same thing.  

Do You Have Grit??

If you gave a child a puzzle and they completed, you would then ask them, “Do you want to do the same puzzle again?” or “Do you want to do a hard puzzle?”  A child with grit would choose the harder puzzle.  A child with grit accepts challenges.  Dr. Dweck said that there are two types of mindsets.  There is “fixed mindset” – that would the person that would choose to safe way – to do the easier puzzle over again.  There is also a “growth mindset.”  That’s choosing the harder puzzle.  A person with growth mindset challenges themselves.  A person with growth mindset isn’t afraid to fail.  In fact, since they are always learning and growing, they know how to learn from their own mistakes.  In the book Dr. Dwyer states that people with a growth mindset can convert life’s setbacks into future successes.  Isn’t that what you want?  Isn’t that something you want your children to be able to do? 

First it’s important to assess yourself and figure out exactly where you stand in terms of mindset.  Do you take the safe route?  Do you believe that you are a certain type of person and don’t desire to change or believe you can’t?  Does your self-esteem come from the opinion of others?  Do you blame others for your failures?  If you do, then keep listening, because I am going to tell you how you can become a person who has grit – or a growth mindset!