Between Covid, elections, unemployment, to say nothing of whatever chronic condition you may be dealing with, it’s basically the perfect “shit storm” out there. There are news clips about how we’re all spiraling down into the outer layers of hell thanks to Covid, the approaching winter and “Oh my God, the Holidays!!”
Now is the perfect time to check your ‘grit ability” and start working on using it to insure your health, safety and sanity. And also, as if I haven’t noted this before, turn off the talking heads at least until the election has been decided. Oh and that may not be for a few weeks until after Nov. 3.
Other than knowing the John Wayne movie, “True Grit,” if this is an unfamiliar concept it’s pretty straightforward, Grit is that strength that allows you to persevere and gets you through the hard times.
You may have heard of Angela Duckworth, read her book or watched her TED talk. She is truly the “Grit Girl,” who coined the phrase that rocked the business world. However, studies are showing that the same grit characteristics that make you successful in business, also help people with chronic conditions. One study found that having higher levels of grit were associated with better health care management skills and consequently resulted in a higher quality of life.
As Duckworth notes, Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint. Living with chronic conditions is definitely a marathon and not a sprint.
So..consider the following to assess and expand your “grit ability:”
• Develop goals that reflect both your ability to control outcomes, yet be flexible and open to change. Cure is the ultimate goal for many, regardless of what the condition might be. Sounds like a lofty and unachievable goal, but there’s a different way to look at that goal.
When I was working in AIDS, one of the most common goal slogans was “Live for the cure.” This was in total opposition to the comments I’d here from infectious disease doctors, who assured me privately this would be an issue for my children’s children. However, the unsaid goal was living until there was an effective treatment but “Live for the effective treatment” wasn’t exactly a catchy phrase.
That incredible spirit of “cure,” “keep the love alive,” and being a PWA (person with AIDS) versus an AIDS victim, kept people going. And not just PWAs used these phrases. Everybody said it doctors, nurses, advocates. No matter what was said privately, publicly, we were all on team cure.
Nothing thrills me more to have worked through the many years of losing people to this disease. Relatively speaking, it wasn’t that long before protease inhibitors were on the market and the discussions started shifting from dying to “oh my God, I’m in debt up to my neck! How am I going to pay this back?”
In short, cure is a fine long term goal but set achievable shorter term ones so that you can regularly experience contentment as you reach these benchmarks. For example, getting certain disease markers under control (such as controlling blood sugar if you are diabetic). Gritty people want to improve so continually redefining goals and objectives can continue to propel you forward.
Keep in mind, you got to have hope, and science continues to show we do have the ability to change our brain through effort and experience.
• Having a
sense of purpose really helps. You want to see an effective treatment in your
life time not only for yourself but to also benefit the people around you-be it
support group members or family members who might be at more risk. Check out
the post Do you feel that you matter?
• Use your rational mind to guide your behavior and try not to fall prey to emotions. Facts do matter so assess situations based on the facts and not on how they make you feel. There’s a lot of misinformation out there that is based on emotion and not facts.
• Failure is part of the deal. Embrace it. We can learn more from failure than success sometimes. Keep in mind that if you aren’t successful at something it doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It just means you need to approach it differently.
• Take the risk and check your fear at the door. Eleanor Roosevelt recommended doing something that scared you every day. Courage is like a muscle-you gotta exercise it or it gets flabby, weak and useless. On the other hand, well exercised, it will grow and help you.
• Recognize that resiliency is part of the human DNA. Trust in yourself embracing the positives and the negatives recognizing that it will turn out alright in the end.
• You are who you hang out with so surround yourself with gritty people. Having positive peer pressure, as well as a good mentor, will definitely improve things for you.
• Finally Optimism + Confidence + Creativity = Resilience = Hardiness =(+/- )Grit This is a good summary equation from Margaret M. Perlis.
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