The biggest indicator of success in anything is Grit.
Sure, we have lots and lots of tools in the Learning Success System for fixing this and that. However, if it doesn't get done, it doesn't work.
If a child won't work through it, that's a big problem. The biggest in my opinion.
But let's state that another way:
No matter how big the problem, if you work through it, if you keep working at it, you are nearly guaranteed success.
Giving up = Guaranteed Failure
Working through it = Success
We see resistance from children in a variety of forms. Learned helplessness (the worst), not seeming to care, laziness, tantrums, slow work, etc, etc, etc. Some of these are just slight indicators of trouble looming ahead. Some are already sliding full speed down a slippery slope.
So, because grit is the determinant of getting it done or not, grit is the most important factor of all.
And we are teaching you how to develop grit in your child in this course. Unfortunately, I see that most people overlook this all-important factor and focus on things that seem more immediate. Sure, a bad report card gets your focus right away. Today's struggle in math get's today's attention. And what we focus on naturally seems the most important thing. Our brains are built like that. It's a natural survival instinct. But it doesn't always serve us well.
Focussing on the immediate threat puts us in a reactionary mode. And unless there's a saber tooth tiger sneaking up on you, reactionary won't serve you.
So even when others things seem more important because of the immediate focus that has been brought to them. It's important to stay on the course of working from where we are. Continuing to build the fundamentals. And since grit is what allows us to do that, the most basic, the most fundamental, the most important thing to always stay on is to build grit.
Pretty regularly we see wonderful success stories of those with learning difficulties who succeeded in amazing ways. Sir Richard Branson, Henry Winkler, and a long list of others. Look closely at every one of them and you will see a common thread, grit.
The stories we don't hear are the ones that did not develop grit. Those are the sad stories. Stories of lives not lived to potential. Those stories are not popular, but we hear them, and lots of them. We'd like to hear fewer of them, and that's why we do what we do.
Sooooooooo
What
Is
Grit?
We've taken the word from book by the same name, Grit, by Angela Duckworth.
Or check out her Ted talk (Believe me when I say it's worth 6 minutes of your time.
https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance
If you want to dive deep into Grit, read her book. I found it amazing. But I'll sum it up for you.
Grit is the biggest determinant of success
Grit is perseverance plus passion.
To get on track, that's all you really need to know.
Note: passion is a weird thing, it's not formed how we think it is formed, it sneaks up on us. And passion about learning is the natural state. If a person does not have passion for learning they are not in their natural state, and that needs to be fixed.
So let's talk about how to form grit:
Set the stage for success
Pick your battles. The foremost authority on battles was Sun Tzu, and Sun Tzu said "If a battle can't be won, don't fight it". Pretty simple eh?
So find battles you know you can win. Take these wins and celebrate them. Soon you will build strength to fight harder battles. This is why the Learning Success System starts off with such small, easy exercises. We want to build up wins. Even if they are small wins. A win is a win. We are very intentional about starting small and easy, as well as taking tiny steps. You can always make those steps bigger when you start to succeed. But first you have to take baby steps.
Trying to do too much (of anything) will result in failure.
Proper Praise
So if Angela Duckworth came up with the problem, Carol Dweck came up with the answer.
Mindset - The New Psychology of Success.
Want an eye opener on behaviors such as resistance to homework, learned helplessness, why super intelligent people fail in a bad way? Read that book. But I'll sum up the important point from the book
Praise the effort, not the outcome.
The reasons for that run deep. She wrote a whole book on it, and a great book at that. But if you want an action step, just start practicing proper praise. And when YOU succeed at it post it here.
That's the thing, we tend to be very outward focused, but it's not only our child that needs training, we do too. Proper praise is a simple concept, but it takes effort to learn. But that effort has a big payoff.
Celebrate Success.
We tend to always be looking at the horizon and we forget the smalls steps we have made forward. Small steps that add up.
Personally I am going through a struggle of my own currently (always something right). I work hard at this struggle every day. Very hard. Yet the hardest thing is recognizing the improvements I have made. All I can see is where I need to be. Yet I try to see the small successes, because I know that is what will bring the big ones. Somedays I'm in a funk. and when I'm there I don't make much, or any progress. But on the days that I realize that I have had a success, well those days drive me for many days. so the trick is staying in that realization, constantly.
Small successes realized, leads to positive additude. Positive additude keeps us moving forward, AND is a part of building grit.
So, it is critical, that you both recognize the small successes AND celebrate them.
Recognizing them is the hard part, because we tend to look for what is wrong, not what is right. We need to train ourselves to do this.
Back in the days when Liz and I both taught a lot of kung fu classes to kids, we would often run into kids with learned helplessness. Liz jokingly (and privately to me) called them boneless chickens. This is because as soon as you asked for any effort at all they would immediatly look as if the bones in their bodies had dissolved. Even standing up seemed to be too much effort for them.
But when we got one of these kids, one of us would take them on as our challenge. We were going to get those bones back in their bodies. We were going to teach them grit.
And we always won at this.
It took time. There was a lot of learned behaviour to overcome. But WE had grit. And we didn't like losing.
To do this we had to constantly watch them but not let them know we were watching them. We had big mirrors so this was easy. (Sidenote: It was hilarious that so many kids who goofed off thought they were being sly when we were actually staring right at them in the mirror. They wondered how we caught them all the time.). We were watching for the tiniest thing we could reasonably call effort. Then we would call it out and congratulate them with glee. And truthfully, sometimes we had to fib a little a lot to get that first win.
But we found that tiny effort, and we built from there. and in a few months, we took a child who no one else had ever been able to motivate and turned them into a child with grit. A child who willing and passionately took on challenges. We won.
It can be done. It's easier when things haven't gone too far. But no matter where things are, it can still be done.
So recap
Pick battles you can win
Proper praise
Recognize and celebrate success
You can do it. I know because you purchased the Learning Success System. And that took effort. I know how much effort you are putting into helping your child. You'll win because of that effort and I'm really proud of you for it. (See what I did there?)
Action Step: So now that you have read this, post what you are going to do, are doing, or have done, to build grit in your child.
