How my son taught me to be gritty

                                            

Angela Duckworth, the co-founder of the Character Lab, sends out a weekly message to all the people who work with her.  This weekly practice has inspired me to try to send out a weekly commentary to all my students.  Since Angela, is the leading psychologist on GRIT, I thought in her honor my first message would be about GRIT.

My youngest son has taught me so much about being gritty.  I remember when he played organized baseball for the first time.  It was the first time that you had a chance to compare him to other kids his own age.  He had a very weak arm, did not field well and really struggled at the plate.  As often happens at that age he was put in the outfield, where balls a rarely hit, and batted last.  Despite probably being the weakest player on the team he fell in love with the sport.

That summer we often went outside to play catch and when I was inside the house I would often hear the ball being thrown against the wall of our house.  He was determined to get better.  As the summer progressed we continued to move from simple catches, to pop flies, to catching fly balls over his shoulder.  By the end of the summer he progressed to being an average fielder.

As the years went on he loved both watching and playing the game of baseball.  He continued to improve athletically.   Watching so much baseball gave him the knowledge of the game which allowed him to make some plays that other kids could not.

This year as a freshman in high school he tried out for the ninth grade baseball team.  The school he attends is one of the baseball powers of the area and I truly wondered could he make the team.  He told me, “Dad you cannot make the team unless you try out for the team” The other day after practice he told me, “I made it”.

It would have been easy for him to give up and stop playing.  There were a lot of bumps along the way.  Times where he did not want to go to bat for fear of letting the team down.  Coaches who lost confidence in him.  Despite it all, he was not going to allow anyone to take away his love for the game.

There is a lot to learn from my son.  I think many of us underestimate how much we can improve if we really focus on improving.  How that if you continue to practice, listen to the feedback you get, use your strengths (in his case his mental knowledge of the game) to help improve your weaknesses (athletic ability) learn from your mistakes, you can really overcome a lack of talent.

That learning is not always easy or fun.  That many times learning is frustrating (try missing pitch after pitch).  It is often boring (try chasing 1,000 pop flies one summer) but that is how we get better.  It does not happen overnight and improvement is not linear.  It is working hard each day so that you level off at a higher spot.

So my challenge to you is pick something difficult for you and develop a plan to get better.  It does not have to be a school thing it can be anything.  I am working on generous assumptions.  Generous assumptions is just giving people the benefit of the doubt, not assuming the worst but the best.

I want these to be meaningful to you, so please give me feedback on how to make them better.  Have an awesome week.