Tag Archive for 'grinta'

Grit: winning athletes’ mindset

“Grit” is a relatively new concept used to describe a particular attitude or mindset that combines determination, perseverance, passion, and inner strength.

Here are some key elements associated with grit:

  1. Determination - Grit is often characterized by a strong commitment to pursuing a long-term goal, without being discouraged by difficulties. Those with grit are willing to work hard and overcome obstacles to achieve success.
  2. Passion - Grit often arises from a deep passion for what one is trying to achieve. When a person is passionate about what they do, they are more likely to make the necessary efforts to succeed.
  3. Resilience - Grit also involves the ability to withstand adversity and failures. Those with grit don’t easily give up when things go wrong but instead look for ways to overcome obstacles and continue to make progress.
  4. Focus - Grit often entails intense concentration on goals and the ability to remain focused despite distractions. Those with grit are determined to stay on the path to success.
  5. Intrinsic Motivation - Grit is often driven by intrinsic motivation, meaning an internal desire to achieve something meaningful for oneself through one’s efforts.

In summary, grit is an attitude characterized by determination, passion, and resilience in pursuing goals. It is a quality that can be extremely useful for overcoming challenges and achieving success in various areas of life, including work, sports, and personal growth.

More info:

Frontini, R., Sigmundsson, H., Antunes, R., Silva, A. F., Lima, R., and Clemente, F. M. (2021). Passion, grit, and mindset in undergraduate sport sciences students. New Ideas Psychol. 62, 100870

Lee J. The Role of Grit in Organizational Performance During a Pandemic. Front Psychol. 2022 Jul 7;13:929517.

The Significance of Grit: A Conversation with Angela Lee Duckworth

Resilience, grit and optimism are important psychological dimensions for any athlete who wants to cultivate his or her talents.

The following are the thoughts of Angela Lee Duckworth a leading expert in this area of study.

It’s all about one specific definition of resilience, which is optimism—appraising situations without distorting them, thinking about changes that are possible to make in your life. But I’ve heard other people use resilience to mean bouncing back from adversity, cognitive or otherwise. And some people use resilient specifically to refer to kids who come from at-risk environments who thrive nevertheless.

What all those definitions of resilience have in common is the idea of a positive response to failure or adversity. Grit is related because part of what it means to be gritty is to be resilient in the face of failure or adversity. But that’s not the only trait you need to be gritty.

In the scale that we developed in research studies to measure grit, only half of the questions are about responding resiliently to situations of failure and adversity or being a hard worker. The other half of the questionnaire is about having consistent interests—focused passions—over a long time. That doesn’t have anything to do with failure and adversity. It means that you choose to do a particular thing in life and choose to give up a lot of other things in order to do it. And you stick with those interests and goals over the long term. So grit is not just having resilience in the face of failure, but also having deep commitments that you remain loyal to over many years.

One of the first studies that we did was at West Point Military Academy, which graduates about 25 percent of the officers in the U.S. Army. Admission to West Point depends heavily on the Whole Candidate Score, which includes SAT scores, class rank, demonstrated leadership ability, and physical aptitude. Even with such a rigorous admissions process, about 1 in 20 cadets drops out during the summer of training before their first academic year. We were interested in how well grit would predict who would stay.

So we had cadets take a very short grit questionnaire in the first two or three days of the summer, along with all the other psychological tests that West Point gives them. And then we waited around until the end of the summer. Of all the variables measured, grit was the best predictor of which cadets would stick around through that first difficult summer. In fact, it was a much better predictor than the Whole Candidate Score, which West Point at that time thought was their best predictor of success. The Whole Candidate Score actually had no predictive relationship with whether you would drop out that summer (although it was the best predictor of later grades, military performance, and physical performance).

 

 

 

Ibrahimovic: the True Grit

What do you to say at this man. Ibrahimovic is the grit in person. He’s the True Grit, he’s the John Wayne of Milan. The young players have a chance to become adult players under his guidance.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic celebrates after scoring the second goal in their away victory over Cagliari.

Antonio Conte: + grit – play schema

When Antonio Conte, Inter coach,  states that “Only in Italy we are fixed on the play schema. Football evolves, it depends on how you attack, on what kind of pressure you apply”; he talks of the need to have determination.

The successful person, whatever is his/her field of action, shows a fierce determination in two ways:

  • extraordinary flexibility and ability to work
  • deep awareness of what he/she really wants

On the contrary, today we tend to emphasize more the value of talent, thus reducing the relevance of every other aspect.

Talent + Effort = Skill
Talent is how quickly you learn when you work hard.

Skill + Effort = Success
Success is what happens when the skills are used with effort.

So, to be successful you need skills and commitment at the highest level and the play schema must support this approach.

Teach the grit

A new way to teach optimism, Amy Lyon instructs students to become aware of their thoughts through a tool called a “grit pie.” The pie itself represents a student’s obstacle, and each slice represents a realistic cause of the problem. Students analyze whether their thoughts about the problem are permanent (“I stink at math and will never get good at it”) or temporary (“I was distracted by my friends”), and whether they blame themselves (“I didn’t ask for help when I was confused by my math assignment”) or others (“the teacher doesn’t like me”) for the problem. Ideally, students’ thoughts are temporary, and if they take at least some personal responsibility for the problem — both of which make positive change much easier.

(By Edutopia)