According to research from University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth, having grit – the personality trait she defines as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals”– is the best predictor of success. While the wins of a relationship are different from the wins in our business, they are still measured with the same sense of gratification.Īnd here’s another reason to stay tenacious. Confidence comes from the wins we put on the board. It is from these fights, we earn our confidence. It is in these battles that we are pushed to use our talents, expand our thinking and work out of our comfort zone. It is in the fight to win, do our best, and rise to the occasion that we grow and learn the most about ourselves. Why does it matter? Why can’t we just quit a little at work, in relationships, on our diet? Why can’t we just take the easy way out? The main reason is because we lose our sense of passion and the great feeling of working hard and overcoming challenges. Quitting is not doing your best, not fighting for the best possible outcome no matter the obstacle. That is not to say that doing our best always makes us win sometimes we do our best and lose. My best would have been better, and it is likely that if I had done my best, I would have won. I could have even said the dreaded “I did my best” but it would be a lie. I didn’t think I was quitting in my tennis match until it was over. Other times we make ourselves look like we are doing our best, but we don’t stay with it long enough to make a difference. We have moments when we remember our goals or dreams and have bursts of working hard again. We physically show up but as soon as our boss, a coworker or client starts to bother us, we disengage mentally. We don’t go that extra distance to make something great. We may stay at our jobs, in relationships and activities, but we don’t really show up to them. I find that more often we are quitting mentally. When I speak of quitting, I don’t always mean it literally as in quitting jobs, relationships, activities, diets, etc. ![]() I even thought, “It’s ok if we lose we really aren’t supposed to win and going into a third set would be a lot of work.” We lost the match and this got me thinking about why we quit and how we justify it. While I did run down balls and make myself look like I was really trying, my heart wasn’t deeply committed to the fight. ![]() In the second set, I quit a third time by not wanting the win more than my opponents. We did not recover and proceeded to lose 15 out the next 20 points and lost the set 7-5. We lost the game without scoring a point. ![]() My partner was serving and our overconfidence got the best of us. The second time I quit was when we were winning the first set 5-4 we were controlling the points, playing strong and looking ready to close it out. I didn’t go into the match prepared to win, instead thinking we might/would lose and even telling people this might/would happen. It was a team that we could beat but was more likely to beat us and that is how I quit the first time. I have won the tournament before but was playing a very tough team. I was playing in the doubles finals of our club tennis tournament. This past summer, I had one of those moments. It’s so easy to quit – it really is easier than working through the pain and challenge of doing something that’s difficult.
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