Grit gets us stand up in the morning. It is inside you. This is what sets you apart for mediocrity.
You see all these business celebrities. And you are determined to be successful.
But what if it was just a matter of personality difference? What if those shiny guys on Instagram were born to be exceptional? What if you have not what it takes to be the greatest?
You feel bloody scared of the failure.
But fear not.
You can enhance your ability to persevere and achieve your dream.
You will learn today how to improve your grit by having the right role model and potentially by maximizing the comic book characters.
Read on.
The Power of Grit
Grit is defined by "perseverance and passion for long-term goals." It is coined by a psychologist, Angela Duckworth in 2016.
Her stance was that anytime you want to do anything meaningful long-term you will encounter setbacks. Those who have grit keep going forward and those without give up in the first few tries.
Grit scale is separate from IQ. So you can have high grit while having an ordinary IQ. That is good news for us who didn't grow up at Harvard.
What's more she proposes this is what differentiates you from the mediocre. How is that so?
Here are 2 illustrative examples.
When you're in school, all task requirements are laid out for you. You will get far if you nail perfectly on everything the teacher tells you to do. It's just like dogs are trained to sit and wait for food.
But once out in the real world, no one is there to guide your journey. There is no one that nudges you to the right path. You need to plan your career way ahead into 5 or 10 years from now. And there is no one that encourages you. A particular challenge may be something that could overcome or is impossible for anyone.
Here is another example.
Imagine you want to make a living making videos. In fact, YouTuber is the number one profession kids want to become today. So you decided to give it a shot to become somebody. As it turns out, it takes 1000 subscribers just to start advertisements. And that may take 3 months. What it means you will likely spend 100s of hours producing videos with no one coming in the beginning. Worse, it might stay that way forever. Can you keep up the quality work despite the anxiety?
Our last example is health.
The legendary investor Warren Buffet once said not taking care of your body when you're young is “like leaving that car out in hailstorms and letting rust eat away at it. If you don’t take care of your mind and body now, by the time you’re 40 or 50, you’ll be like a car that can’t go anywhere.” How convincing of that statement coming out of the 89-year-old still active investor.
Unfortunately, there is so much temptation to junk food today. Ice Creams, Pizza, Fries, Coke... It's insanely difficult to stay off all the calories and sugar. It's not just food, but also for going for exercise.
Grit is the answer to all 3 scenarios. Grit lets you keep working despite uncertainty over months or years.
So how can you improve it?
Heroes To Your Rescue
Back in 2011, research was conducted at University of Richmond by Allison and Goethals. They wanted to discover how having a personal hero affects your personality.
To the participants of 450 people in the age between 18-72, they asked who ware their favorite heroes. The answers came back instantaneously. 95% of the people listed have at least 2 heroes in just a few minutes. On average, they had 5.
Before I go in explaining how these heroes help build your grid, I want to first give you a better idea about what heroes are. The researchers discovered 3 types of heroes: family members, public figures, and fictional.
Family members
Surprisingly, 32% of the listed heroes were their family members. Things mentioned were:
My parents went through rough times to raise six kids successfully.
My father did without to give to us.
My mother for teaching me to never give up.
Some common characteristic of heroes were found: generosity, self-sacrifice, struggle, persistence, and faith. Keep an eye on this persistence attribute for now.
Public figures
Another hero category was the famous celebrities everyone knows. You see them on TVs or read their biographies. The president, athletes, social change visionary, and actors/actresses. Example list is:
- George Washington
- Margaret Thatcher
- Michael Jordan
- Babe Ruth
- Martin Luther King
- Nelson Mandela
- Oprah Winfrey
- Mel Gibson
Fictional
The rest of the heroes was fictional. These flawless and prototypical heroes come from comic books, television, or movies.
- Superman
- Batgirl
- Karate Kid
- Rocky Balboa
- Captain James Kirk
- Han Solo
Some people also mentioned characters from books like Huckkleberry Finn. But it was less so because it was harder to visualize.
Of all the 3, fictional heroes are considered more perfect and closer to an ideal than the real human heroes.
Hero As Your Long Term Role Model
Here's the twist in research. Now that we've defined the heroes, how are they related to our psychological trait?
To answer this, the researchers asked another set of 75 college students to come up with heroes traits. As a result, they identified 8 clusters, one of which includes resilience. This is determination, accomplished, and perseverance.
This resilience quality in having a hero is a key to increase your grit.
How does it work?
Researchers believe that it reflects our common tendency to identify with certain people as role models. We look them up for the guides for action, particularly moral action. They are energizing and inspiring after all.
The best part is this works at our subconscious level, which is exactly what you need in a long term in the midst of stress and temptation.
Freud called this process, "the assimilation of one ego to another". The way you thinking gets fused with that of your hero without acknowledging it explicitly. That phenomenon keeps happening unless you stop admiring that particular hero.
With a resilient competent hero on your side, you won't care about the setbacks from new challenge. Let them those ignorants laugh at failures. You will triumph eventually.
Next Step: Find Your Hero
Now that we understand the impact of our hero, it's time to sort them out. As the experiment shows, you probably have 5 heroes in your mind as well.
But some of them might be outdated. Outdated for your life.
Here's what I mean. You might have liked Churchill when small. You have read about his World War legacy in a history class. Ever since, you have always visioned of taking such leadership. But right now, you have just started a new career and need a better role model that fits your new lifestyle. Maybe such person is Steve Jobs.
How should you find your favorite heroes?
You can read biographies. You can watch movies. You can look around your social circle.
But there is a reason the title says comic book hero in this article.
I recommend picking a comic book hero for one reason: their duration.
A major comic has been running for years. Spider Man for example has been on his active duty for over 50 years. That volume of storytelling lets you invest more time emotionally into the character. You will really dive in and align with those characters.
Here are 3 examples of comic book heroes:
1. Spiderman
As mentioned, this long running Marvel series made a beautiful come back in the early 21st century in the movie. The main character Peter Parker plays a multi-disciplinary role; he cares about the well being of her widow grandma, tries to secure a career as a cameraman in competitive New York, maintains a rosy romantic relationship with Mary Jane, and of course saves the city from the bad guys. This hero goes on to have a stressful yet balanced lifestyle.
I'm sure you will find yourself similar to at least one of the situations. Spiderman is a well-rounded hero role to have.
2. Iron Man
Another Marvel series makes an interesting contrast from Spider Man. Iron Man is a billionaire that saves the world with his own invention. The story cant be more innovation friendly. While the focus is not on corporate politics, it involves some serious grown up business like strategic competition, senate hearing, and military cooperation.
We talked about Steve Jobs. But Iron Man can be your new role model of successful inventor and business person who changes the world for the better.
Fun fact: Iron Man played Robert Downey Jr. by in the movie was based off of Elon Musk, one of the greatest innovator of today.
3. One Piece
Who says comic books have to be American? One Piece is a manga that has been running over 20 years now. It's a story of a pirate called Luffy. The starts off with him recruiting his pirate crew member and sails around with them to find the pirate treasure.
While most Marvel heroes are solo players, One Piece focuses on team players. This might be a better simulation of the real world scenarios. For example, when starting a business, the standard approach is not to start inventing on your own, but rather to find a co-founder and talk to an investor.
Watch Out For Hero Bias
I will make one remark. The heroes mentioned are all male characters. But they can be any gender, as we've seen Batgirl in one of the research findings.
One more caution: be careful of hero bias. Personal hero builds who you are. But that also means it shows who you are not. If you pick one whose traits you don't admire, it will become your blind spot.
For example, all the 3 heroes I mentioned are suited around your career and ambition. But if you are having a family and looking for a good caring father figure, you will need a different hero. Maybe Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead?
Read Comic Hero And Gain Grit
Every time you take on new challenges, adversaries are inevitable. That is the part of personal growth. But sometimes there is no one that can give a proper guidance to persevere.
Reading about heroes help when you need encouragement to keep moving towards your goal. It comes in importance especially when having the need to make a complex decision like career and family.
By reading into hero stories and aligning yourself with the characters, you will build your character and grit. You want to become resilient against any obstacle that may be thrown at your life right.
What are you waiting for?
It's time to go out and change the world with those personal heroes.