The passion and perseverance to see long term goals through

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Daily Five, an experimental podcast by Aurooba, where I talk about something for five minutes. So let's get to it, shall we? I was 18, I think, when I first discovered the concept of an annual theme, also known as one little word if you're in the memory keeping community. Basically, it's this idea of choosing one word that guides you through the year.

[00:00:37] It guides your goals, it guides your attitude. It's something you can remind yourself of when things get a little tough or you're trying something new, and I think it's a way cooler concept than even like goals or year or a new year resolution because what you're saying is, [00:01:00] here's this value or attitude that I wanna take this year toward everything.

[00:01:07] Examples are openness or rising, et cetera, and I often do choose a word, and sometimes I'm able to decide right before the new year begins, and sometimes it takes me a few more days or almost a month to figure out what might be mine. And so I've been thinking about it for this year, for 2023, and I realized through all the things I've been doing and talking about on this podcast that my word for this year.

[00:01:46] Is grit. So grit is defined as the passion and perseverance for long-term goals. This definition comes from Angela [00:02:00] Duckworth, who I know from the podcast, No Stupid Questions. And I mean, she's pretty famous and she's written an entire book on grit, which I discovered last night, and I'm definitely going to read it now.

[00:02:14] And something that I've known for a while about grit – these are the random things that get stuck in my head – is that grit is what separates one person from the other who might otherwise be the same in terms of how much success they have in their life, right? Because perseverance and the ability to be consistent

[00:02:42] and pursue something even when there are no short term wins in it. That is what grit is and that is what's necessary if you wanna do big, hairy, important things in your life, right, and we all have different [00:03:00] levels of grit. I think there might be some level of grit, low or high or what have you, that is inherent in us because of how we grew up maybe.

[00:03:12] But I believe that it can also be developed. So I think that I am someone who has some grit, but my ability to persevere through the very difficult can really depend on how much passion I have. However, I also know that doing anything big and important or hairy, requires being comfortable with a certain level of, hmm, boredom and lack of reward.

[00:03:50] And I think this year with this podcast especially, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to do something every single day [00:04:00] and persevere no matter what, to develop that grit so that I can apply it to the other big things I wanna do with my life. You know, the other things that right now maybe don't feel as achievable but would be if I could trust that I have enough grit to see them through.

[00:04:25] James Clear has like a lot of articles on this too. He calls it mental toughness, which I think is also pretty accurate . And yeah, I think grit is pretty important, and I think that is my word this year. That is what I'm trying to do. That's the approach I wanna take. Thanks for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.