When I decided that I would instead stop settling for average and mundane I needed to figure out what made the extraordinary people extraordinary. I’ve spent a good 6 months thinking about this concept and trying to figure out what makes people stand out from other people. How can an average person go from unremarkable to unmistakable. I think I have come to figure out exactly what it takes, it takes grit. Grit is defined as courage and resolve; strength of character. By that simple definition I can’t think of a successful person that doesn’t have these traits.
Heroes are never perfect, but they’re brave, they’re authentic, they’re courageous, determined, discreet, and they’ve got grit. ~ Wade Davis
At an early age I figured out quickly that if I wanted something awesome to happen I needed to take certain risks for those wants to come into fruition. Risk is a very general term, risk can mean anything from emotional, financial, physical, medical, and everything in between and beyond. As far as I’m concerned I’m a fairly risk averse person, that’s why I can just jump into something and go full throttle even if I know I’m eventually going to hit a brick wall. I was always taught you’ll never know what you are made of if you don’t try and if you try you better give it your all. This, I think, was the foundation and major influencer for my ability to just jump in. It has over the years been at times my best asset and other times it was my worse asset. When you are a risk averse person you walk a very fine line between excellence and massive failure, it doesn’t take much to overstep your bounds and fall flat on your face.
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. ~ Albert Einstein
This is really where grit takes hold. There are moments in everyone’s life where you either take it safe or you jump off the cliff blindfolded and hope to everything that is holy (even if you don’t believe in a higher power) that you don’t hit the fucking rocks. These leaps of faith are the moments that transcend you into extraordinary. But grit, grit is that moment where you hit the fucking rocks; broken bones, bruises, grounded into a pummel but after the reconstructive surgery, the months of rehabilitation, you get the fuck back out on that cliff and you give it a try again. Grit means no matter what you push forward, you do what is right and if you fail you have the courage to try it again but this time with the previous experience of where the rocks at the bottom of the cliff are, you can avoid them this time.
Over time, grit is what separates fruitful lives from the aimlessness. ~ John Ortberg
I’m not the only one who believe that grit is what makes people stand out from other people. Many successful, creative, and brilliant individuals, much more so than I, have said that grit is a key factor if not the most important factor to pave your way to excellence. With the many experiences I have had in my short relatively short life I’ve got to say that the most amazing and powerful moments of my life was shortly after I failed; nothing to lose, back up against the wall, drowning in shame and depression. The moment when you shake off that loss and you climb your ass back up out of the whole of despair is the moment I value the most, those moments made me who I am today, those moments will come again and when they do I will know never to give up. I’ve got grit, we’ve all got grit, none of us have to settle for anything less than extraordinary, we just need to know when to dust ourselves off and take another leap of faith, you will eventually be rewarded for your resolve and tenacity.
I look forward to getting knocked down because it’s a chance to stand back up and show life the grit from which I’m made. ~ Chris Holmes