Persistence and the Algorithm of True Grit

PERSISTENCE AND THE ALGORITHM OF TRUE GRIT
The Movie, the Math, the Motivation


True Grit is author Charles Portis’ most famous novel--first published in 1968, and the basis for the movie of the same name starring John Wayne in 1968, and remade in 2010 starring Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon. True Grit, as you might know, tells the story of Mattie Ross, a fourteen year old girl who loses her father when a coward called Tom Chaney shoots him down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, taking not only her father’s life, but his horse and $150 in cash as well. Mattie leaves home to avenge her father's death. She teams up with a U.S. Marshall and a Texas Ranger.

The entire story is from Mattie’s viewpoint, and her character is neither adorable, nor is the world of the wild west in which the story is set. However, what she might lack in adorability, she more than makes up for in determination and persistence. She’s all in, determined against all odds to set things right, as they did in the wild west, where frontier life was harsh and dangerous, and the line between good and evil was often blurred.

What this means is that Mattie will do whatever is necessary, no matter how challenging or difficult, to avenge her father’s murder. The same is true of the U.S. Marshal she hires, an untamed man, honorable only to a point, and willing to do almost anything to achieve his ends.

All of this comes at a price, of course. Mattie wants revenge, and the U.S. Marshal seeks redemption, but both must pay in extreme ways. Portis’ novel is blunt, brutal at times, and imbued with a profound understanding of compromise and loss. Yet through it all, Mattie persists until she perseveres, even at the price of losing her arm in the process.

This month’s theme is persistence, and today we are exploring its algorithm. NOT TO WORRY— no actual numbers are necessary for us today. I can hear that collective sigh of relief for those who are number or math phobic.

Persistence describes a firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition. An algorithm, as you likely know, is a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations. It is the  procedure or formula for solving a problem, based on conducting a sequence of specified actions.

So what we are considering today is the algorithm of persistence, the equation for grit. We are asking, “what set of actions, behaviors, and ways of thinking and being, enable the quality of persistence?” Today, we will use the word grit interchangeably with persistence.

Obviously, in the story of True Grit, perhaps persistence was taken a bit too far, at least from the perspective of our contemporary society. But the story takes place 150 years ago, when the law of the land prevailed over the laws of country. And sometimes, over common sense and social justice. This is why we look back at that time in our country’s history and call it the wild west.

I bring up the story of True Grit not for its gruesomeness, but as a mnemonic device we can all use to understand persistence, and to use to develop more of this quality––to persist in our persistence, if you will. It's the trait that allows us to continue doing something, or trying to do something, even though it is difficult or opposed by other people. When looking at the attributes of successful people, persistence is always mentioned as one of the most important factors in success. Often the only difference between those who succeed and those who don’t, is the ability to keep going long after the rest of the pack have dropped out.

It’s relatively easy to persist when things are going well and we see progress, but highly persistent people have found ways to keep going despite major setbacks and a lack of evidence that they are moving closer toward their goals.

What is grit? Angela Duckworth is the world’s leading authority on the science of grit. In fact, she pioneered the field.

Duckworth says that grit is not talent or luck. Grit is not how intensely, for the moment, you want something. And, grit is NOT the same as self-discipline or self-control. Rather, grit is about having an “ultimate concern”–a goal you care about so much that it organizes and gives meaning to almost everything you do. And grit is holding steadfast to that goal. Even when you fall down. Even when you mess up. Even when progress toward that goal is halting or slow. And even when life throws unexpected curve balls.

Duckworth defines grit as “the combination of intense passion plus intense perseverance toward a long-term goal that matters to you.”  This gritty persistence is the tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals. It is the voluntary regulation of our behaviors, emotions, attention, and impulses in the presence of momentarily gratifying temptations or diversions leading us away from these long term goals.

That’s a wordy way to say that persistence equals grit, and grit is passion plus perseverance.

Did you catch that math equation that just flew by? In case you missed it or dozed off for a second there, I’ll repeat it: persistence equals grit, and grit is passion plus perseverance.

So, grit is obviously a critical skill set when it comes to being persistent. In fact, I will propose that there are four psychological assets we can cultivate to be more gritty. And we can use the word GRIT itself as a way to remember how we can grow our grit, our persistence.

The first letter of GRIT is G. G stands for Giving attention to, being interested in. If we want sustainable passionate interest, we need to be intrinsically drawn to what we do. It needs to fire us up. We need to love it. Naturally, there are facets of what we do, even those things in which we are passionately interested, that aren’t particularly awesome. BUT, we’re just not going to put in the effort over the long run unless we have, in Duckworth’s words, an “enduring fascination and childlike curiosity.” I like that definition. I think we sometimes get too caught up on the word passion. An “enduring fascination and childlike curiosity.”

Passion is energy within us. It may or may not come from our life work. We can identify our passions by tuning into what energizes us, and then we make room for more of that in our lives. My passions are spirituality and theology, knitting, writing, and developing meaningful relationships with people who really get me and encourage me. These things energize me. Sometimes they calm me. Always, they fuel me, and help me keep going. These things, for me, provide that “enduring fascination and childlike curiosity.”

The things that energize you may be totally outside of your job. It may be a hobby, volunteering, or a part-time gig. It may be in the way you relate to other people. Or it may be that you create your own meaning in your job. A wonderful New York Times article from 2007 recounted the 20th annual “Sludge Olympics.”  The Sludge Olympics is a competition for New York sewage treatment workers. The participants compete to show skill in their work, and often they do so with great passion. Hard to imagine, but there it is.

So, what is the thing or things over which you can practically shout, ‘I love what I do! I love when I do this! I love when I get to…’” ? What are those things in which you have an enduring fascination and childlike curiosity? Take a beat and think about that.  

I warned you about the numberless algorithm, but I did not warn you about our spelling quiz today. The next letter of the word GRIT is R. R stands for Reason, our purpose for what we do, most especially what we most LOVE to do. Purpose, Reason, is all about seeing what we do, especially those things about which we are most passionate, as mattering in the world. It is essential that we love what we do. However, we’re not going to sustain our interest over the long run if it’s just about us. We need to make the connection to something bigger than ourselves. Really gritty people know that their work is important, both to themselves and to others.

Remember those New York City sewer workers we just mentioned?  How can someone possibly be passionate about sewage treatment, right? Why is it that some people can be extraordinarily well-paid and work in pampered settings, but feel empty, while others can work in the sewers of New York City and feel fulfilled? Part of the answer is purpose, reason. Purpose is built thoughtfully, not stumbled into. It is an act of will we make by connecting our work to serving.

So in addition to asking yourself what thing or things you passionately love to do, whether by vocation or avocation, now you must ask yourself your reasons for spending time and effort doing it.  Does it impact you and others in a positive way? Is it important? Does it add value to you, to your sphere of influence, or to the greater world out there? How does it serve the world?

Because some of us have short memories, let’s recap. GRIT is our algorithm for persistence, and the G is about GIVING attention to, and R is about having a REASON for doing it.

Let’s look at the next letter of the word GRIT. It is, I. I is about Imagining hope. The ability to imagine and hope defines every stage of grit. It’s the “rising-to-the-occasion” kind of perseverance in which we KNOW that we have the ability to achieve what we set out to do. Imagining is knowing that if we stay down, grit and persistence, lose. If we get up, grit and persistence, prevail.

Shane Lopez, in his book, Making Hope Happen, contends that imagining hope is a choice that can be learned, and can be shared with others. Hope is a more dynamic concept than just wishful thinking or manifesting the positive; it is the ability to imagine a future goal and understand the steps necessary to accomplish it. Furthermore, it is also taking those steps that fuels our ability to continue imagining hope. In other words, we can’t imagine hope by wishful thinking alone; we must take action which continues to feed hope. And without imagining hope, we can have no grit, no persistence.

What difference is there between wishful thinking, manifesting, being optimistic or positive, and imagining hope? Aren’t they all the same thing? According to Lopez, wishful thinking, manifesting, being optimistic and positive are all ways of thinking that the future will somehow be better than the present, just by how we think about it or shifting our perception. Those are perfectly good things, but notice that they are very passive and mostly self-centered. Imagining hope, on the other hand, takes us a step further. It goes beyond simple imagination, manifesting, and positive thinking, by seeing that the future will be better and that we have an active role in making it so.

Imagining hope includes goals for our desired future, acquiring the ability to achieve those goals or making adjustments to our goals so that they realistically match our abilities, and imagining various pathways we might take to meet our goals. 

We can imagine ourselves Olympic gold winners all we want, but if we do not realistically have the skills needed, or the ability to gain the skills needed, for an Olympic event, no amount of manifesting or wishful thinking will make it happen. So part of imagining hope is the ability to adjust our goals so that they realistically match our abilities. Trust me, as we age, reality often changes what we had once hopefully imagined when we were younger and more physically able.

Imagining hope, the “I” in GRIT, means that hope is active, not passive, something we can make happen. It is believing that we have the power to make the future better than the present. It is knowing that there are multiple paths which can further us, and that hope often walks hand-in-hand with fear. Imagining hope is not allowing fear to have the final word.

So, GRIT is about GIVING attention to,  having a REASON for doing it, and IMAGINING hope.

We’ve come now to our final letter, the fourth psychological asset in our algorithm of persistence, which is the letter T. T stands for TRAINING. Training is another word for practice practice practice. And when you’re tired of practicing, practice some more. We TRAIN ourselves in grit, persistence, perseverance by showing up every single day.

In his book, Peak, Anders Ericcson asks, “Why are some people so amazingly good at what they do?” His answer is that  the amazingly good ones aren’t amazingly good because they are born with some magical gift, but they all develop their abilities through dedicated training that drives changes in the brain, making it possible for them to do things that they otherwise could not. Yet, when it comes to training, to practicing, simply doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to get better won’t necessarily make it happen. Training without being purposefully deliberate might even make us train ourselves into failure.

So we have to choose our training deliberately, with focus, and a purpose that matches our reason we found in the R part of our GRIT equation.

We know, for example, that the more we study and learn something, the more detailed and in depth our knowledge of it gets, and the better we get at assimilating new information related to the topic.

Since Halloween is coming up, let’s use the simile of a spiderweb. In our mental spiderweb, we start with one little thread. Then we add another. And another. As we immerse ourselves in our passionate interests, and train and practice, striving to learn more and hone our skills, we find that the web gets stronger and stronger until all the information makes even more sense and fits into an interconnected whole.

So, I propose a numberless algorithm for persistence, as summarized in the acronym of the word GRIT.

G: GIVING attention to an ultimate concern
R: having a REASON for doing it
I: IMAGINING hope about it, and,
T: TRAINING for it.

If we want more persistence in our life, if we want to be people with grit and gumption, we will use our algorithm of GRIT to its best effect.

Are you persistent? Do you have TRUE GRIT? If not, are you willing to develop it? I hope you will, now that you know the algorithm. I challenge you this week to use our acronym algorithm GRIT to cultivate more grit!