Do You Have Grit?

My daughter just started 3rd grade. This morning on the way to school, she asked me if I had "grit"!? "Grit?" I said, "where did you here that?"  She said she had learned about grit at school from her teacher.  This was very intriguing to me. I don't recall the last time I've heard someone use the word "grit".

So I asked her what she thought it meant to have grit. She promptly and confidently said to me that having grit means that you work really, really hard at something and you never give up. It's requires being brave and having courage.  My little girl is learning about what it takes to have grit. Somehow that seems to be a cold, hard word to me.

Then I began to think about whether I was being too soft. Did I have grit? Am I tough enough? What does grit really mean?  I looked up the definition:

Grit in psychology is a positive, non-cognitive trait, based on an individual’s passion for a particular long-term goal or endstate coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve their respective objective. This perseverance of effort promotes the overcoming of obstacles or challenges that lie within a gritty individual’s path to accomplishment and serves as a driving force in achievement realization. 

Hmm. Grit is positive. It's based on passion for a long-term goal, and requires powerful motivation plus perseverance. I decided I kind of like this "new" word. I decided I'm going to work on my "grit" level!

At the end of the school day, my daughter told me that there was a program in which all the teachers danced and did a skit about having grit. And I discovered that the school principal wrote a message in the weekly school newsletter and mentioned the word grit.

I've decided if my third grader is determined to have "grit", I need to have some too!

Got passion? Think positive? Got some goals? Motivated? Willing to persevere?  I'm happy to tell you, you've got "grit"!

Love and Prayers,
Sondra