This Week's Focus:
"Build Your Grit: Create Great Results!"
"I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful … from the non-successful … is pure perseverance."
- Steve Jobs
Our lovely West Coast August has turned into a glorious West Coast September. I feel blessed.
I'm making progress on the technical side of my new ebook Thrive! How to create what matters most with whatever life gives you!
I'm going to first put it up on Smashwords.com where it can be downloaded to computers and for all e-readers.
I'm working on a plan to give all of you a coupon code which will allow you to download it for fr.ee!
Eventually, I hope to get Thrive! up on Amazon, and in a print version.
Lots of work, but lots of fun, too. It draws deeply on whatever "grit" I've developed. And builds more!
BUILD YOUR GRIT: CREATE GREAT RESULTS!
In the last edition of Simply Success I described what Positive Psychologist call "grit."
Defined as, "perseverance and passion for long term goals," your grit level accurately predicts how well you stick with and complete real and lasting results. It's a measure of your ability to maintain passion for results and to perseverance — and thrive — in the face of problems, obstacles adversity.
It's largely grit that gets you across the long slog along the flat part of the learning curve, and keeps you slogging until the curve turns up and results begin to come to you with less and less effort.
Sound good?
So how to you build grit? How do you get gritty and create those big results you'd truly love to create?
Last week, I described how taking action in creative tension — set up by holding a clear, compelling vision of a desired result in mind, simultaneously, with an objective description of the current state of that result — generates three powerful energy sources you can use to get going, keep going and follow-through to completion.
Working with the creating skills, within the creating framework and creating lots of small, medium and large creations is one key way to build grit. For a great example, see the video (below) of a high school student building his own little house in his back yard. Great way to build grit!
Here's a few other suggestions for you:
• Stick with things. Complete results, even small ones. Doing so builds competence and confidence, which combine to produce momentum, a key source of energy for creating.
• Hang around folks with grit. In person, in books and movies or in a program where you can see grit demonstrated.
Reading memoirs and biographies of gritty people helps me develop grit. See for example, Jeanette Walls great novel/memoir of her grandmother in Half Broke Horses. If you didn't know what grit was before reading this great book, you will after finishing it.
• Develop realistic optimism and positivity. By shifting from the pessimistic end of the spectrum — "I can't…" — to the optimistic and realistically positive — "I can do…" — end, you'll find it easier to create bigger and better results with less effort and far less stress.
• "Find something you really care about, and live a life that shows it!" That's a line from a Kate Wolfe song, but it could be one of life's great rules. Grit requires passion, lots of passion. So focus on what you love, your heart's desires. That'll the work and practice part of grit much easier.
• Embrace challenges. Aim above your current skill level. Not too far above, but far enough to bring out the best in you. If you're playing a sport, play with someone a little better than you. If you're writing, try to write for publication. Get outside the drone zone. Don't over-shoot into the panic zone. Find your challenge zone, and work there.
• See mistakes as feedback and learn from criticism. In creating, we try to separate the creator from the creation. So what if the story you read at the workshop got savaged by the others. YOU didn't, just the story did.
Take hints from the criticism that'll help you improve your story. If your coach criticizes your tennis swing, she's not criticizing YOU - she's criticizing your swing. Take it all in, learn from whoever and wherever you can.
• Chunk big results down into manageable chunks. Give your self small assignments and do lots of drafts. See those drafts, and all your actions, as experiments. Learn from the experience your actions lead to.
• Persevere! Work your away across the learning curve "poco a poco" — little by little, and soon you'll be experiencing the sweet feeling of successful results coming together. Remember it's the last 20% of effort that produces 80% of your results!
One last thing. Don't force yourself. Work within creative tension. Use the energy of motivation, creative tension and momentum to pull you along toward the results you truly want to create. It's easier and more fun!
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COACHING INFO PACKAGE AND F.REE COACHING CHAT
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Want to develop your grit and passion for creating results that leads to real success?
I have space for 2 clients in Sept/Oct. And 3 spaces for Oct/Nov. Fall is filling fast because It's a great time to start coaching, and creating. Why wait 'till New Year's?
I'm going to Mexico for a month in December so I won't be taking any clients after the Oct/Nov period until January. So best to jump in now, and get creating!
If you'd like more info, send an e-mail with "Coaching Results Package" in the subject.
I'll send you my fr.ee 7-page info package. No obligation! No pressure!
Here's what another successful client had to say about working with me:
"Coaching with Bruce means doing practice, and being accountable to yourself. It's tough sometimes, but it sure as heck was worth it for me. I just finished my book proposal and got word from my agent that two (2!) publishers are interested. A year ago, I just dreamt about a book and told myself, "It's too hard!"
Bruce's coaching helped get me beyond that, down to work and making progress."
– D.S. Sprecher, Vancouver, BC
And you? What's your dream? What do you want to create?
If not now, when?
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VIDEO: A HIGH SCHOOL KID BUILDS HIS "GRIT!"
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This moving video depicts a Junior in High School building grit by building his own little house in his back yard. It's on wheels, so he'll be able to take it to college and live in it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXDu2U-CmkI&feature=player_embedded
As you watch, notice how he combines learning, practice and perseverance in his building process. When he's done, he'll not only have a cool little house. He'll have more grit!
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VERY SPECIAL VIDEO: "END MALARIA!"
BUY A BOOK AND SAVE A LIFE!
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This video is a plea to buy a new book called "End Malaria." $20 from the sale of each book will go to send a mosquito net to a family in need and to support life-saving work in the fight against malaria. By buying a copy of this book, you can help save lives!
Check out the video! It's only 1 minute.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o73udN_Y3Z0&feature=player_embedded
If a bunch of folks like you buy this book, a bunch of folks in Africa and other places will get to keep on living and enjoying life. So step up, buy a book and save a life.
I have no monetary or reciprocal relationships with the authors or the groups sponsoring this program. And I did buy a book, myself!
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QUOTABLE QUOTES
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“There are two keys to being creatively productive. One is not being daunted by fear of failure. The other is sheer perseverance.”
– Mary-Claire King
“Success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed; pay the price and it is yours.”
– Orison Swett Marden
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
– George Bernard Shaw
“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”
– Robert F. Kennedy
“Genius is perseverance in disguise.”
– Mike Newlin
“With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.”
– Keshavan Nair
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THANKS FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT!
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Thanks for reading Simply Success. If you like it, please send it on to family and friends, place it on web sites, print it, duplicate it and post it freely. Knowledge is power!
Also, posting a note on Facebook and Twitter and other social media sites can sometimes give us a huge boost. If you want, cut and paste this short post:
"New blog post: "Build Your Grit:Create Great Results!"
Go to: http://createwhatmattersmost.blogspot.com/
For more on the topic of Simplicity and Success, check out my books and ebooks at:
http://www.bruceelkin.com/simplicity.html
Have a rich, free, gritty and thriving week!
Cheers!
Bruce
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Copyright (c) 2011 by Bruce Elkin. All rights worldwide reserved.
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