Do you know what Grit is? Do you think you have it? On Monday, one of my paleo challengers handed me an article, True Grit: The Secret of Success, and said one of her goals was to get some “grit”. She loves doing CrossFit but has felt something has been lacking in her performnace and it was reading this article that helped her realize what it was-she lacked “grit” and she wanted to find some. After I read the article, I thought of three people that I think embody “grit” and they proved it last weekend in Tucson-your trainers and top three finishers at Remember Tucson Will, Josh and Marcus.
Grit by definition is “sustained perserverance and passion for long-term goals”. It entails working “strenuously toward challenges and maintaining effort and interest despite failure, adversity and plateaus”. If you have ever watched Will, Josh or Marcus do a workout or attempt a lift they embody the meaning of grit. Will has the innate kinda grit that comes from being a competitive athlete his whole life and always wanting to be and do better. Josh has the deep kinda grit that your born with and just cultivates as he grows more passionate about something and Marcus has the simple grit-the dig down and get-her-done kind you need to get through a wod or to get that extra kilo or two in a snatch.
Unlike Will, Josh and Marcus-not everyone has “grit” but it doesn’t mean you can’t cultivate it or simply “get some” as Will would say. You can cultivate grit-I think everyone has it in them but like my paleo challenger-you have to want it first. To get some grit we need to focus on four things: goals, passion, visualization and optimism. Let’s use my paleo challenger as an example. First, she needs to pinpoint a long term, specific goal that she is willing to work hard to obtain despite the obstacles that might come up. For my paleo challenger, she wants to be able to do a pull up. Now, how is she going to achieve that? She is going to train, come in 10 minutes early and practice her kip or come to an extra Detention class and have a trainer work with her but is that all it takes? No, training can only get you so far-my challenger needs some passion.
Passion is what gets you out of bed in the morning or drives you to the gym when you are tired or feeling sick. You need to truly care about your goal in order to develop it. Next, my challenger has to be able to actually visualize obtaining that goal. She needs to be able to see herself getting that pull up in her own mind and the imagine the feelings that come with that success. Picturing yourself getting that pull up or standing on the podium of a CrossFit competition, makes the end goal feel real, attainable and gratifying. I guarantee Will sees himself on the podium before every competition-he tell himself he is going to make every lift before he attempts it-Will truly visualizes every rep, round, wod and competition.
Lastly, my challenger needs to have optimism-you can’t attain anything unless you have the right “nothing is going to stop me, no matter 
what gets in my way” attitude. And what is the biggest obstacle in learning a pull up-torn hands! So to my challenger, my favorite quote is “pain is temporary, victory is forever”. Even when you hands are bloody and they hurt like hell-perserve through the pain, focus on the end result and know you can do it and then you will have some grit!
