Perrysburg Pulse Magazine Perrysburg Pulse November | Page 10

D
espite West Point Military Academy’s rigorous
selection process, one in five students drop out
by graduation day. A sizeable number leave the
summer before freshman year, when cadets go
through a rigorous program called “the Beast.”
The Beast consists of extreme physical, mental, and social
challenges that are designed to test candidates’ perseverance.
University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth
conducted a study in which she sought to determine
which cadets would make it through the Beast program.
The rigorous interviews and testing that cadets went
through to get into West Point in the first place told
Angela that IQ and talent weren’t the deciding factors.
So, Angela developed her own test to determine which
cadets had the mental strength to conquer the Beast. She
called it the “Grit Scale,” and it was a highly accurate
predictor of cadet success. The Grit Scale measures
mental strength, which is that unique combination
of passion, tenacity, and stamina that enables you to
stick with your goals until they become a reality.
To increase your mental strength, you simply need to
change your outlook. When hard times hit, people with
mental strength suffer just as much as everyone else. The
difference is that they understand that life’s challenging
moments offer valuable lessons. In the end, it’s these tough
lessons that build the strength you need to succeed.
Developing mental strength is all about habitually doing the
things that no one else is willing to do. If you aren’t doing
the following things on a regular basis, you should be, for
these are the habits that mentally strong people rely on.
1. YOU HAVE TO FIGHT WHEN YOU
ALREADY FEEL DEFEATED.
A reporter once asked Muhammad Ali how many sit-ups
he does every day. He responded, “I don’t count my sit-
ups, I only start counting when it starts hurting, when I
feel pain, cause that’s when it really matters.” The same
applies to success in the workplace. You always have two
choices when things begin to get tough: you can either
overcome an obstacle and grow in the process or let it
beat you. Humans are creatures of habit. If you quit when
things get tough, it gets that much easier to quit the next
time. On the other hand, if you force yourself to push
through a challenge, the strength begins to grow in you.
2. YOU HAVE TO DELAY GRATIFICATION.
There was a famous Stanford experiment in which an
administrator left a child in a room with a marshmallow
for 15 minutes. Before leaving, the experimenter told the
child that she was welcome to eat it, but if she waited
until he returned without eating it, she would get a second
marshmallow. The children that were able to wait until the
experimenter returned experienced better outcomes in life,
including higher SAT scores, greater career success, and
even lower body mass indexes. The point is that delay of
gratification and patience are essential to success. People
with mental strength know that results only materialize
when you put in the time and forego instant gratification.
3. YOU HAVE TO MAKE MISTAKES, LOOK
LIKE AN IDIOT, AND TRY AGAIN—
WITHOUT EVEN FLINCHING.
In a recent study at the College of William and Mary,
researchers interviewed over 800 entrepreneurs and
found that the most successful among them tend to
have two critical things in common: they’re terrible at
imagining failure and they tend not to care what other
people think of them. In other words, the most successful
entrepreneurs put no time or energy into stressing
about their failures as they see failure as a small and
necessary step in the process of reaching their goals.
4. YOU HAVE TO KEEP YOUR
EMOTIONS IN CHECK.
Negative emotions challenge your mental strength every
step of the way. While it’s impossible not to feel your
emotions, it’s completely under your power to manage them
effectively and to keep yourself in control of them. When
you let your emotions overtake your ability to think clearly,
it’s easy to lose your resolve. A bad mood can make you lash
out or stray from your chosen direction just as easily as a
good mood can make you overconfident and impulsive.
5. YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE CALLS
YOU’RE AFRAID TO MAKE.
Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do
because we know they’re for the best in the long-run:
fire someone, cold-call a stranger, pull an all-nighter
to get the company server back up, or scrap a project
and start over. It’s easy to let the looming challenge
paralyze you, but the most successful people know that
in these moments, the best thing they can do is to get
started right away. Every moment spent dreading the
task subtracts time and energy from actually getting it
done. People that learn to habitually make the tough
calls stand out like flamingos in a flock of seagulls.
6. YOU HAVE TO TRUST YOUR GUT.
THERE’S A FINE LINE BETWEEN TRUSTING
YOUR GUT AND BEING IMPULSIVE.
Trusting your gut is a matter of looking at decisions from
every possible angle, and when the facts don’t present a
clear alternative, you believe in your ability to make the
right decision; you go with what looks and feels right.
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