Dr Jim’s Blog: How to use Writing Therapy for business success
Copyright (c) Jim Byrne, September 2018
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Introduction
Every day, I discover some new problem that I have to solve, for important, self-defined reasons.
No matter how many problems I solve, I still find new challenges to grapple with.
This is our human nature. We are problem-finding and problem-solving creatures. We move forward in life by wrestling with difficulties.
If we do not wrestle with difficulties, we get stuck at some unsatisfactory point along our path through life.
Navigating the turbulent seas of stressful life
My Writing Journal is my *anchor* and *compass* in the turbulent seas of life. At least when it comes to processing my negative experiences.
For example, yesterday I was feeling quite unhappy because one of my major goals was not being achieved to any significant degree. Nothing I did seemed to shift my unhappiness about that sense of stuckness. To be clear, it was a goal about business success…
I had worked hard to define that goal, and to work out a detailed action plan. But progress was so far below par that I felt greatly discouraged.
So I sat at my desk with my journal, and reminded myself of the writing therapy processes that I have written about in my book, which are designed to help in this kind of situation. I used the section on self-management skills, and pretty soon I had identified something that I can do to maximize my chances of achieving the goal in question.
Pursuing business goals
On this particular occasion, I was concerned about a business goal, and so I made a commitment to write it in my journal every morning, and then to review progress against that goal, also in my journal, at the end of every day.
I was also remained of the very important principle that “success cannot be pursued”. Success, like happiness, is something that happens as a by-product of following your conscience in doing your life’s work. So I began to write about my life’s work, and how to pursue some elements of that today, and not how to translate that into material success!
As I wrote, the *writing therapy process* itself began to resolve things, and throw up new ideas. I now have a daily strategy to follow which should take care of the problem for me; and if it does not; then I can go back to the ‘drawing board’ (or writing therapy journal) and do some more work on this problem.
Conclusion
My book on Writing Therapy teaches these points (among the more than 20 strategies I include); and also the principle that you have to “think on paper” – (or *perceive-feel-think* on paper) – otherwise you will get washed out into the turbulent sea by the stressful waves of life, and lose your connection to your anchor in life (which should be your life’s work, dictated by your conscience!).
Renata’s Coaching & Counselling blog: Why bother setting goals? Why not just go shopping instead – have a bit of retail therapy?
People love to be distracted! Makeovers, new clothes, new cars or houses, holidays and other material goods or experiences can be very pleasurable distractions in the short term. But there is one big drawback which you’ll never hear about from the media. Here it is:
# As human beings we get ‘habituated’ to new things in our lives. This means that we get used to new things and the glow wears off very quickly, and we start to feel dissatisfied again.
Have you noticed how children quickly get used to having presents given to them? Have you noticed how soon you can adjust to new furniture, or a new car? Or a new relationship?
What a shame that is, after what they cost us!
Distractions are very poor substitutes for the achievement of meaningful goals! Let me explain:
# Achieving goals is a deeply satisfying activity for humans, and research has shown that our brains release a feel-good hormone when we achieve them. We have that sense of achievement for the rest of our lives – no-one can take it away from us. Each time we remember it, we feel good and we know the hard work we had to do to achieve it.
I have had the privilege for years of seeing the happiness and sense of achievement shine out of clients’ faces when they achieve their goals. For example, I have helped many students to achieve their academic qualifications, at the end of a course which has been a tough battle for them; but they made it through! I was so proud of them, and they wisely took pictures at their presentation events so they could treasure the event for the rest of their lives and show them to their families.
That warm glow lasts for the rest of our lives! And you can’t buy it on Oxford Street or on any other high street in the UK or your local supermarket.
And this warm glow is experienced no matter whether your goal is related to your work, your home life, your relationships, your academic study, your hobbies, etc.
So how can we achieve our goals?
Athletes involved in sports or other areas of life have coaches to help them achieve their goals and win competitions. They know they can’t do it all on their own. They know the value of focus and constructive feedback, and how efficient and effective it can be.
But in ordinary life, people have just as many challenges, because they face the tasks of holding down a job, and/or raising a family, managing their relationships, and/or creating a career for themselves, handling health problems, caring for other family members, organising social events and many other tasks.
They also have information being bombarded at them, 24/7, from different directions. So it can be very easy to get confused and lose contact with themselves. That’s when hiring a coach/counsellor will help you focus on:
Where you are now in your life
What you specifically want to gain or change
What you can change and what you can’t
The specific steps you can take to improve your life
How to persist with taking those steps
Models and techniques you can learn to keep your head above water.
How to create the kind of life you want for yourself in the future.
ABC Coaching and Counselling Services
The coach/counsellor uses their skills and training to help you create a better life. With their support and knowledge of how to release your potential, you get to step out of your daily routine and figure out where you are headed. And, also to check out with yourself if this is what you really want.
You may want to change your job, or some aspect of your relationships, achieve further training, or take a searching look at where you are going in your life. With the help of a coach/counsellor you can identify the experiences you want and make changes which will last the rest of your life.
And the effects will last longer than the new hairdo or CD you bought, or that new mobile app you wanted. Your warm glow of achievement, when you achieve a valued goal, will be a treasured part of your life. And remember – you can’t buy it at Sainsbury’s!
Do you want to give it a try and find out the truth for yourself? We are geared up to work with you to bring valued changes into your life, so contact us for help and support.
Renata’s Coaching & Counselling blog: A ‘Rave Review’ of Grit: the Power of Passion and Perseverance by Dr Angela Duckworth
Introduction
In this blog I want to explain to you why I think this book – Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance – by Angela Duckworth is a great book, and show you how her research can help us in our daily lives, as we try to achieve our goals.
Dr Angela Duckworth is an Associate Professor of psychology, at the University of Pennsylvania. When she was in her second year of graduate school, she started researching the achievements of highly effective people in different areas of life: business, the arts, journalism, medicine, athletics, the law, etc.
She wanted to know if there were any common features that successful people, at the top of these various fields, shared. And so she interviewed the leaders in these different occupations and discovered something which she found of great interest. There was a distinctive way of behaving that they all shared. When they faced failure, in one form or another, they just kept going!
She found that highly successful people were remarkably persevering. They were really hard-working and could bounce back after set-backs. And they knew where they were headed. They were passionate about what they were doing and this drove them on.
In her book she states:
“No matter what the domain, the highly successful had a kind of ferocious determination that played out in 2 ways. Firstly, these exemplars were unusually hard-working and resilient. Secondly, they knew in a very deep way what it was they wanted. They not only had determination – they had direction.”
Gradually, as the interviews with these highly successful people progressed, she was able to create a series of questions. These questions tried to gauge the extent of someone’s ability to keep going in the face of obstacles, and how passionate they were about their chosen activities.
With these questions, she created a questionnaire called the ‘Grit scale’, and she decided grit – meaning passion and perseverance – was the outstanding feature of the successful people she interviewed. In the scale, she has several questions about perseverance and also questions about passion.
She describes passion as: “…a compass – the thing that takes you some time to build and tinker with and finally get right, and that then guides you on your long and winding road to where, ultimately, you want to be”.
Angela Duckworth starts her book with a description of the training of new recruits to the United States Military Academy at West point. She describes highly capable and dedicated cadets, who, in order to be selected, have had to produce excellent high school grades and demonstrate top marks in physical fitness tests.
They have to undergo seven weeks of initial training, which is very rigorous and demanding, and hence is called “Beast Barracks”.
These cadet trainees had applied in their junior year in high school to join the West Point cadets, and although 14,000 apply, this number is cut down to 4,000 who then have to get nominated (by a member of Congress, or a senator, or the Vice-President of the United States). These 4,000 are then reduced because fewer than half will meet the strict academic and physical standards of West Point.
From this group of approximately 2,500, there is a final group selected of 1,200 who are enrolled and admitted into the academy.
What fascinated Angela Duckworth was the number of trainees who didn’tmake it to the end of the training course and she wanted to find out why. During this 7 week training, (which is very strenuous, with no weekends off and no contact with friends and family), there is a drop-out rate of 1 in 5 cadets.
Why was this drop-out rate so high with young recruits who had worked for years to achieve their dream of becoming a West Point cadet for the United States Military?
To find an explanation, she used her own ‘Grit scale’, which I mentioned at the start of this blog, to see if the results achieved by cadets (prior to their training) gave a clue as to who would drop out of the 7 week training, and who would complete the training course successfully.
She administered the test in July 2004 to 1,218 West Point cadets and discovered something remarkable. What she did was to compare the scores on the ‘Grit scale’, which the cadets had achieved, and their ‘Whole candidate scores’.
These ‘Whole Candidate scores’ were the test and exam results that had been collated during the cadets’ lengthy admission process, starting from junior high school onwards. These scores showed the levels of academic ability, physical fitness, plus military fitness predictions.
When she compared the scores for the ‘Grit scale’ and ‘Whole candidate scores’, it became apparent to her that no matter howgifted a cadet was, this was no indication of their Grit level.
Here is a sample of her Grit scale (all of which can be found on page 55 of her book):
She saw this same pattern (of lack of correlation between talent and grit) repeated in the later scores when she gave the test again the following year. This was her conclusion, based on the results:
The only thing that could successfully predict that a cadet would get through the “Beast barracks” initial training programme was their scores on the ‘Grit scale’, and not their high school rank, or their academic ability, leadership experience, athletic ability or their ‘Whole candidate score’.
She continued her research into the power of grit in the sales profession, which can be a very strenuous training ground. As they try to sell their goods, salespeople constantly get rejection from other people, and have to manage their reactions to this, and keep motivated.
The ‘Grit scale’ predicted the people who stayed the course, in the sales industry. She states:
“No other commonly-measured personality trait – including extraversion, emotional stability and conscientiousness – was as effective as grit in predicting job retention”.
She also used the test at the request of the Chicago Public Schools Services, and she discovered, through administering the Grit Scale to the students, that the level of grit of the students was a more revealing measure of whether they would graduate or not.
Their level of completion of academic work, or how much they liked school or felt secure in the school environment, was not as good an indicator as the Grit score.
She also completed 2 extensive samples of American adult students, and found that adults who were ‘gritty’ (meaning having high scores on the grit test) were more successful in their academic studies.
Angela Duckworth then initiated a collaboration with the US Army Special Operations Forces, known as the Green Berets. After a very difficult training period, (which included a boot camp, 4 weeks of infantry training, 3 weeks of airborne school, and 4 weeks of day and night land navigation) the recruits then do a Selection Course which she describes as, “Making Beast Barracks look like a summer vacation”.
On the selection course there are daytime and night time challenges, runs and marches, obstacle courses etc. And simply to be chosen for the selection course was an achievement in itself.
However 42% of the candidates that she observed, pulled out of the training of their own free will before the selection course had finished.
She found that a high score on the ‘Grit scale’ predicted who would make it through the Selection Course. So grit in candidates was the best predictor of future success – not talent.
She states: “Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another”.
After a number of years teaching, Angela Duckworth could see very clearly that “talent was not destiny”, and she decided to leave teaching for psychology, as she wanted to get really clear about the role that effort made in achievement.
In her book she mentions that Darwin considered that the factors which make up achievement are hard work and enthusiasm, and that they were fundamentally of greater value than intellectual ability.
But she discovered from surveys conducted in America over many years, that, although many people state, and seem to believe, that hard work was more significant a characteristic than intelligence, in fact they actually believed the opposite.
People who were ‘naturally gifted’ were rated more highly than people who were very hard workers. She therefore considered that: “We have an ambivalence towards talent and effort”.
When people rate talent so highly, this means that other factors are considered much less valuable. And this further means that other abilities, including grit, are not valued (or are downgraded).
Angela Duckworth gives examples of the value of grit in two case studies, and I will summarise the example she gives of the progress of Scott Kaufman. Kaufman is a psychologist who now has three degrees and plays the cello for fun.
When he was young he was considered to be a slow learner. He suffered a lot from ear infections and this affected his ability to process information. He was put into special education classes (because of assumed low ability to learn) at school, and had to repeat third grade.
After a nerve-wracking interview with a school psychologist, who gave him lots of tests, he performed badly and was sent to a special education school for children with learning disabilities.
When he was fourteen one of the specialist teachers decided to ask Scott why he wasn’t in a more demanding class.
Scott told Angela Duckworth that up until that time, he’d always assumed that because he wasn’t talented, there wouldn’t be much that he could do with his life.
The fact that he met a teacher who believed in his potential was a huge revelation for Scott. At that time he found himself wondering, ”Who am I? Am I a learning disabled kid with no real future? Or maybe something else?”
So what he did then was to try to find the answer to those questions! He enrolled on as many demanding school activities as he could. He joined the choir, and the school musical, and the Latin class. He wasn’t the top in everything, but he learned in the classes.
“What Scott learned”, said Angela Duckworth, “was that he wasn’thopeless.”
As Scott’s grandfather had been a cellist in the Philadelphia orchestra for 50 years, he asked his grandfather if he would give him cello lessons. Scott started practising for 8 or 9 hours a day, not just because he really liked playing, but because:
“I was so driven to just show someone, anyone, that I was intellectually capable of anything. At this point I didn’t care what it was”. (Page 32)
He was so good on the cello that he managed to get a place in the High School orchestra. He then increased his practice even more, and by the end of his second year, he was the second-best cellist in the orchestra; and awards from the Music Department were given to him regularly.
Scott’s classwork marks improved and his enthusiasm and curiosity about new subjects expanded. But he was dogged by his low IQ scores from childhood.
This restriction continued until the day came when he decided to apply to the Carnegie Mellon University. He was fascinated by the concept of IQ and he wanted to study intelligence, so he applied for a cognitive science course.
In spite of the fact that he had very high grades for his work, and lots of achievements from his extracurricular activities, he was rejected. It was apparent to Scott that it had been the results from his SAT scores that had kept him from being offered a place.
However, he was very determined. “I had grit”, he said. “….I’m going to find a way to study what I want to study”. He applied for the Carnegie Mellon Opera programme of study. This was because they didn’t look very hard at SAT scores and focussed on musical aptitude and expression.
So in Scott’s first year he took a psychology course as an elective, and then added psychology as a minor. Then he transferred his major from Opera to Psychology. And then he graduated at the end of the degree course with a high scholastic distinction, in psychology!
Scott Kaufman then went on to earn several more degrees, and to work in an American university as a psychologist. Angela Duckworth shows empathy towards Scott for the following reason:
“Like Scott, I took an IQ test early in my schooling and was deemed insufficiently bright to benefit from gifted and talented classes. For whatever reason – maybe a teacher asked that I be retested – I was evaluated again the following year, and I made the cut. I guess you could say I was borderline gifted.”
She considers that focussing on the amount of talent an individual has, is a distraction from something of equal value and she considers that “As much as talent counts, effort counts twice.”
She quotes Nietzsche’s views on why societies place talent over the hard work ethic.
“Our vanity, our self-love, promotes the cult of the genius. For if we think of genius as something magical, we are not obliged to compare ourselves and find ourselves lacking.”
He wanted people to think of very high achievers as crafts(people). He wrote this:
“Do not talk about giftedness, (or) inborn talents! One can name great (people) of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became geniuses…they all acquired the seriousness of the efficient crafts(person) who first learns to construct the parts properly before they venture to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole”.
So what can we take away from Angela Duckworth’s investigation into the concept of ‘grit’? She concludes the book by explaining that you can grow your own grit – and she considers that there are two ways of doing it:
She suggests that you yourself can decide which interest you are going to put your precious time and energy into, link up your work with a wider purpose that benefits others, and learn the value of hope, when situations look bleak.
You can also give yourself daily challenges to develop your skill levels. She describes this as “Growing your grit from the inside out”.
But you can also grow your grit level “From the outside in”. This is done by having support from parents, coaches, teachers, bosses, mentors and friends. They can make a great difference. Where would Mozart have been without his musical father? And where would Bill Gates be without a wealthy lawyer father, and – from 1968 onwards, as an 8th grader – unlimited access to a computer terminal at his private school? (So grit is very important, but so also is external support, and ‘door openers’ [or people who ‘allow you in’]).
Conclusion
How does knowing about the Grit Scale help us? It means that there is solid research that shows that talent can only take us so far. And there are things that are more important than talent as determinants of success.
With a great start in life, having supportive and encouraging parents, for example, we can develop our natural talents to a high level. But at some point, unless we develop gritty behaviours, we will not develop our talents fully.
The really good news is that if we practice these ‘Gritty behaviours’ shown on Angela’s scale, then we’ll reap the rewards in terms of completing the courses of study we undertake; and achieving the necessary qualifications; so that we can create solid careers for ourselves.
Or, we can create a richer and more satisfying life for ourselves if we follow our interests with passion and perseverance, whether we earn a wage for it, or not.
Finally, in Angela Duckworth’s book, she describes the findings from journalist Hester Lacey’s interviews with very creative people. Each of them was asked, “What was your greatest disappointment?”
The responses she received to this question were almost always identical:
“Well – I don’t really think in terms of disappointment. I tend to think that everything that happens is something I can learn from. I tend to think, ‘Well, okay. That didn’t go so well, but I guess I will just carry on’.”
A pretty gritty response!
I strongly recommend Angela Duckworth’s TED talk,
and her book, which has lots more interesting things in it (including a generously-shared account by Angela of her own use of grit when a tutor for her degree course advised her to drop the cognitive psychology course she was studying because they didn’t think she was capable of passing it)!
But this is the longest blog I’ve written, and I didn’t want to include any more, as it would be straining your grit muscles too far.
In fact, if you’ve got this far – well done for sticking with my review! And if you do the grit test, it will give you valuable self-knowledge. If you share what you’ve learned about grit and the grit test with someone in your family or a good friend of yours, who may be struggling with a challenge they are facing at the moment, it can really be very helpful for them. The scale shows clearly how you can develop your grit muscles.
Renata’s Coaching & Counselling blog: Barbara Sher on achieving your goals and dreams
Barbara is one of the best coaches I have ever seen
Introduction
In this blog I am going to describe some of the valuable insights and advice that Barbara Sher gives to her audiences in her ‘You Tube’ videos.
Barbara is a speaker, career/lifestyle coach, and best-selling author of seven books on goal achievement. Her books have sold millions of copies and been translated into many languages. She explains why finding your dreams reveals your unique talents.
This insight can help people who are struggling in jobs they don’t like and who have become unsure of what they want to do with their lives. Her advice can help people who don’t know what their talents and unique gifts are. What she says can also help people who know what their talents are, but have a resistance to doing anything about it, and can’t understand why.
About Barbara Sher
I came across Barbara Sher’s video extracts a few days ago, and although I had heard of her, and read one of her books about twenty years ago, I didn’t really know her work at all.
The great thing about seeing someone on ‘You Tube’ is that you can hear some of their main ideas right away and get a strong grasp of who they are. And I was really impressed by her. She is very authentic and genuine, and she has created some very powerful coaching strategies which can help people struggling with the challenge of expressing their talents, in a world which may disregard them.
Here’s a relevant statement she makes:
“Americans think if it don’t make money, it don’t count! Try telling that to Leonardo Da Vinci or Einstein!”
That is one of the most empowering quotes I have heard for a very long time. It’s not just the United States where that view prevails. (It explains why one of the most important and difficult job in the world, which is being a mother, is so underrated and devalued in many cultures. It doesn’t earn money, so it’s not rated; being rich, having lots of cars and houses, is considered the real deal instead. Even if the money results from raking muck! Very sad!)
Why you must do what you love
This heading is the title of one of her ‘You Tube’ videos, and she states this principle as follows:
“If you’re doing what makes you happy you are contributing your talent to the world…you’re doing what you were born to do, and what your species in the world needs you to do, and you can do better than anyone alive.”
(There are obvious reservations to be added here. For example, if you are a sadist, and you are really enjoying hurting other people, that is not your calling! So we are talking about doing things within moral limits here).
Barbara Sher describes her mission as helping people to do just that. But she states what the obstacles might be, very clearly:
# It might not make money, or not make money right away.
# You might have the attitude that it would be being wrong and selfish to do it.
# You might be resistant to doing it.
# You might be in an isolated situation, and not know how to do it.
# You might not know the right people or have the right information.
# You might need the support of people who would say, “Did you do it yet? Let me help you.”
She does point out that, although it’s your obligation to do what you love, you may have to practice it in different ways:
# Full time if you were born rich.
# Part-time if you have to hold down a job.
# “Don’t insist that it turns into a career”.
A goal achievement formula
In her ‘You Tube’ clip entitled “Isolation is the dream-killer” she describes the amazing events that took place in some of her ‘Success workshops’ in New York, where people came to the front of the group and told the group what their dreams were.
She asked people to describe their wishes, and then asked them what the obstacles were. So the formula was:
“What is your wish?”
“What’s your obstacle?”
Because this exercise was done in a group setting, the other members of the group were able to help with possible solutions to the obstacles described by whoever was sharing their wishes or goals.
Some of the ways that the participants helped each other were truly moving, and heart-warming, and the group helped lots of people achieve their goals.
She describes one client whom she had, who found it incredibly difficult to think of what they loved, and Barbara tried all sorts of questions out on her and had nearly given up on her ability to help the client.
Barbara had a policy of not charging the client if she was unable to help them, and was on the verge of not charging this particular client for the session, because she had been unable to help her identify her dream goal in life.
But then she noticed that, as the client picked up her bag as she left, she had a book with her – and it was all about gorillas! So Barbara asked her why she was reading the book, and the facial expression of the client completely changed to one of extreme happiness. She loved gorillas, she declared, but couldn’t see how she could achieve her dream of working with them.
Barbara thought this was very significant. But the client said to Barbara: “But doesn’t everybody love gorillas and want to work with them?”
Barbara said, “Come back into the room and get out your cheque-book – I’ve just helped you find your dream job”.
The virtue of persistence
Barbara had tried dozens of ways to identify this client’s ideal job and had almost given up when she spotted the book. This illustrates something about the flexibility, creativity and persistence of a good coach in trying to track down what is going on with the client.
The client does not know what to tell the coach or counsellor. The counsellor or coach does not know which questions to ask. So they have to keep going until they ‘strike gold’!
This is one of the main things I love about this kind of work!
Barbara’s ‘You Tube’ videos are full of amazing examples of people’s goals and how they had given up on them, but sometimes, when they told them to other people, things changed.
Humans are natural problem-solvers
In Barbara’s TEDx talk in Prague in 2015, she explains that we are all natural problem–solvers. We can all listen to someone’s dream, and let it pass us by. We see no reason to intervene in what the person has told us.
However, if that person then tells us what the obstacles are to getting the dream, then our problem-solving skills are hooked, and we’ll automatically come up with all sorts of creative ideas.
So if we want to get help from others regarding our dream, or vision, we have to tell them the obstacles. Try it and see!
Barbara says, during her 2015 TED talk,
“Never laugh at anyone’s dream“.
This talk is full of great examples of how people can get what they want.
If you can’t share your dreams with a group, she recommends that you get a coach or a class.
Conclusion
What Barbara’s talks (and her books) do is show you how to achieve your goals. She also has considered and explained the inner resistances we may have in following our goals. She explains how nature is not the least bit interested in us achieving our dreams – nature just wants us to be safe and not have any feelings of anxiety.
She considers that there’s always a resistance to going for what you want, but you can’t let it stop you. That’s why you need a group of people who believe in you, or a coach or a class.
“You can’t arm-wrestle resistance”, she says.
I hope you take the time to look at her ‘You Tube’ talks, if you don’t feel that you have got your dream job, or treasured goal, and want to reshape your life.
I’ve just treated myself to three of her books from Amazon, so I’m looking forward to their arrival!
Every day, I discover some new problem that I have to solve, for important, self-defined reasons.
My Writing Journal is my *anchor* and *compass* in the turbulent seas of life. At least when it comes to processing my negative experiences.
So I sat at my desk with my journal, and reminded myself of the writing therapy processes that I have written about in my book, which are designed to help in this kind of situation. I used the section on self-management skills, and pretty soon I had identified something that I can do to maximize my chances of achieving the goal in question.
PS: If you want to see the kind of range of ideas that I write about, please go to Books about Emotive-Cognitive Therapy (E-CENT).***
People love to be distracted! Makeovers, new clothes, new cars or houses, holidays and other material goods or experiences can be very pleasurable distractions in the short term. But there is one big drawback which you’ll never hear about from the media. Here it is:
I have had the privilege for years of seeing the happiness and sense of achievement shine out of clients’ faces when they achieve their goals. For example, I have helped many students to achieve their academic qualifications, at the end of a course which has been a tough battle for them; but they made it through! I was so proud of them, and they wisely took pictures at their presentation events so they could treasure the event for the rest of their lives and show them to their families.
Dr Angela Duckworth is an Associate Professor of psychology, at the University of Pennsylvania. When she was in her second year of graduate school, she started researching the achievements of highly effective people in different areas of life: business, the arts, journalism, medicine, athletics, the law, etc.
Gradually, as the interviews with these highly successful people progressed, she was able to create a series of questions. These questions tried to gauge the extent of someone’s ability to keep going in the face of obstacles, and how passionate they were about their chosen activities.
From this group of approximately 2,500, there is a final group selected of 1,200 who are enrolled and admitted into the academy.
She also used the test at the request of the Chicago Public Schools Services, and she discovered, through administering the Grit Scale to the students, that the level of grit of the students was a more revealing measure of whether they would graduate or not.
After a number of years teaching, Angela Duckworth could see very clearly that “talent was not destiny”, and she decided to leave teaching for psychology, as she wanted to get really clear about the role that effort made in achievement.
When he was fourteen one of the specialist teachers decided to ask Scott why he wasn’t in a more demanding class.
This restriction continued until the day came when he decided to apply to the Carnegie Mellon University. He was fascinated by the concept of IQ and he wanted to study intelligence, so he applied for a cognitive science course.
But you can also grow your grit level “From the outside in”. This is done by having support from parents, coaches, teachers, bosses, mentors and friends. They can make a great difference. Where would Mozart have been without his musical father? And where would Bill Gates be without a wealthy lawyer father, and – from 1968 onwards, as an 8th grader – unlimited access to a computer terminal at his private school? (So grit is very important, but so also is external support, and ‘door openers’ [or people who ‘allow you in’]).
In this blog I am going to describe some of the valuable insights and advice that Barbara Sher gives to her audiences in her ‘You Tube’ videos.
Here’s a relevant statement she makes:
Barbara Sher describes her mission as helping people to do just that. But she states what the obstacles might be, very clearly:
In her ‘You Tube’ clip entitled “Isolation is the dream-killer” she describes the amazing events that took place in some of her ‘Success workshops’ in New York, where people came to the front of the group and told the group what their dreams were.
But then she noticed that, as the client picked up her bag as she left, she had a book with her – and it was all about gorillas! So Barbara asked her why she was reading the book, and the facial expression of the client completely changed to one of extreme happiness. She loved gorillas, she declared, but couldn’t see how she could achieve her dream of working with them.
So if we want to get help from others regarding our dream, or vision, we have to tell them the obstacles. Try it and see!
ABC Counselling and Psychotherapy, Hebden Bridge 