Grit Fit

Over the summer I read this book by Angela Duckworth for a professional development book study through our school. If you are an educator and haven’t checked out this book, there are some awesome takeaways for the classroom. Are you all about growth mindset? This is the companion.

You know when you’re reading a book and you get this “Ah-ha!” moment that makes you want to highlight, underline, post on social media, and somehow tie it into every normal conversation you’re having that day? Please tell me this isn’t just a “me” thing! Well, this book had several of those moments for me. Probably the biggest insight for me was the research backing the claim that talent is not the largest predictor of success. We all kind of already know this to be true. Hard work can beat talent; I’m sure we all have stories of someone we know who was talented, but lacked ambition, or someone who beat odds to find success, natural ability aside. This book helped me to concrete that claim and build a bridge for classroom application.

I knew that I would benefit professionally by reading the book. What I didn’t expect was to benefit personally. One of my favorite parts of the book is when Duckworth explains how she promotes Grit in her own family. Every family member has to do one hard thing: sports, playing an instrument, starting a new hobby. They have to stick with it and power through the rocky spots for at least a year before they are allowed to decide to give it up. I love this idea, so I adopted it.

My “hard thing” that I chose was to get in shape, I mean really get fit. Let me tell you, it’s a doozy. I started by kind of winging it, as I do most things. I have a Fitbit. I started caring about how many steps I took rather than just casually observing. Then I started to care about meeting a goal. Then I found some friends who also cared about meeting their goal and that’s when things started to change.

One of the big ideas Duckworth talks about is being part of a great team. If you want to be good at something, find people who are better at it than you are and do what they do. I found people who ran more, ate better, and worked harder than I did. Instead of feeling like a loser for going on that 5am run, I felt guilty when I skipped it since everyone else did go on that run. The desire to be a part of a group is a powerful force. This is not the kind of peer pressure that your mom warned you about.

Another big idea that Duckworth mentions that I found myself starting to incorporate into my “hard thing” mission is deliberate practice. She explains that you are not just mindlessly going through the motions when you are trying to practice. You are deliberate in that you are putting forth maximum effort to better yourself. I started to be mindful of my form when exercising. I stopped cutting the workout short when I was getting tired. I started to care about growth, and wouldn’t you know it, I made gains!

I dropped 4% in body fat and my resting heart rate dropped 5 beats per minute this summer. Now before I got Gritty about being in shape, this would’ve meant zip to me. Maybe it means zip to you. Here’s the real accomplishment. I have visible abdominal muscles for the first time in my life. The first time ever. I’m not that mom taking her kids to the park in a crop top, but I am that mom who is perfectly carefree about taking her kids to the pool and wearing a bathing suit herself.

Has it been easy? Absolutely not. I’ve almost given up on eating healthier every single day since I’ve started. But ya know, that’s the point. If it’s easy, you aren’t being gritty. My advice: read the book, find your “hard thing” (maybe it isn’t getting in shape), stop thinking that being a better you is a cliche.