The Secret to Success: Grit

What’s The Number One Factor Associated With The Secret to Success?

Is there a secret to success? Could there be one “magic bullet” that will help you create the positive outcomes you’re hoping for? One strategy, one personal practice to focus on that will unlock the doors to Love, Happiness, and Success far more powerfully than any counselor, life coach, or self-help book?

If there is, its name is Grit.

At least, this is what the research is suggesting. Dr. Angela Duckworth started with one simple question: Why do some kids do better than others in school? Her subsequent research blew the top off our traditional understanding of why people succeed while others fail.

To sum up the findings, it’s not about intelligence, socio-economic status, or environment. Kids who did well academically did so because they persevered through adversity, and were able to control short-term impulses in favor of long-term goals.

As a Denver life coach and online career counselor, among other things, I have to say that I agree.

Watch Dr. Duckworth’s wonderful TED Talk about Grit.

The Secret to Success: Grit and Self-Control

In recent years, Dr. Duckworth and her fellow researchers have been extending her original research and seeking to understand the relationships between Grit, Self-Control, and a host of positive outcomes for adults as well as kids. It seems that everything from stable marriages, to feeling happy, to personal wealth can be mediated by these variables.

Kind of a big deal.

Learning to harness the power of Grit and Self-Control will get you farther than the right self-help book or life coach. In fact, a big part of what good life coaching involves is teaching people how to get grittier (and once you’ve gotten gritty and in control of yourself you can pretty much fire your life coach).

So today on the Love, Happiness and Success Podcast, I’m so honored to be speaking with David Meketon, a former teacher and school administrator who works with Dr. Duckworth. He’s going to be talking more about the research behind Grit and Self-Control, and also provide us with some practical strategies that we can use to develop these qualities in ourselves.

So, let’s talk about grit, the secret to success.