How GRIT Will Change Your Life!

This one little formula will truly change your life.

Have you ever felt completely overwhelmed, and then you just don’t know where to focus? You find yourself not accomplishing what you had hoped? At times you get distracted and end up doing something completely different than you had thought you would?

You’ve written your list for the day, only to find yourself straying from that list.

You’ve scheduled your calendar with the tasks you know are important, but you ignore them and do something that’s not accomplishing anything.

Someone calls or needs something and you are quick to abort your own priorities and jump in and help them.

You’re spending a majority of your time at work fixing things and putting out fires. ​ I could go on and on… because yes, I’ve been there too!

I’ve been the master of lists and tasks and calendars and goal setting. And I’m not saying it’s all bad. It’s been effective for me at times. But when you find that you’re not going where you want to with all of these lists and goals and structured tasks, it’s time to step back and check your GRITⓇ!

In most cases, it’s a matter of not being aligned, passionate and disciplined.

Whenever I find myself off wandering aimlessly, or getting distracted, or not motivated... I know it’s time to get my GRITⓇ together!

Generosity, Respect, Integrity and Truth are the four principles that make up GRITⓇ. Uniquely combined, these four principles can help you get clear about what’s important in your life, and provide a roadmap to start living that way.

Generosity is where we want to be as an end result. The feeling of abundance. That there is enough time, money, love… you name it. (Hint: Too much generosity can be a detriment!)

To get to authentic Generosity, we need to start with Truth, and work our way through Integrity and Respect. 

Step 1 - Truth Figure out what is important to you in life. What are you passionate about? What do you most value? Sometimes we need to explore a little to discover our Truth. There are many ways to do this. A couple of suggestions: -A favorite book I highly recommend is The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope. -Go on a retreat for self-growth, healing, or for your business or career. Don Miguel Ruiz of the Four Agreements is one of my favorites for self-growth and healing.

Define how you want to feel. What you want to be doing. How you want to live.

Hint: When discovering your Truth, remember to be very accepting of it, rather than judgmental of yourself. We always have the option to change if we want to!

Step 2 - Integrity Once you’ve defined your Truth, identify what you need to do to align to your Truth. Integrity is about the action you will take. Remember those lists and tasks and calendar items I mentioned above? Be sure to check them to your Truth. This will help you connect your heart with your head, and do what’s most valuable to you.

Step 3 - Respect When you know your Truth, and you live in Integrity, you begin to naturally Respect yourself. We must have a healthy self-respect before we can expect others to respect us, and certainly before we can truly respect others. You may have heard the analogy - Put the oxygen mask on yourself first? We have to take care of ourselves - with the food we eat, the amount of sleep and rest, the water we drink, the exercise we give our body and even what we feed our minds!

Hint: Respecting others is realizing that we don’t know their Truth. We have to be careful not to assume we do. We can certainly ‘wonder’ and ask questions. That’s healthy. But to believe you absolutely know someone else’s Truth will not serve you well.

Step 4 - Generosity There’s a lot to be said today about Generosity. A great book on this by Adam Grant delves in even deeper than I did in Leading With GRITⓇ! When we are clear on what’s important to us, and we live in alignment with that, respecting ourselves and others - it will be much easier to give and receive. It will be easier to say no when you need to. You will feel more confident. You’ll receive when you need to. You will feel more gratitude.

Hint: If you find yourself giving too much, this is a great opportunity for self-reflection. Use the GRITⓇ model to help you look at your respect, integrity and truth. You’ll most likely find out why you are doing this to yourself - if you’re willing to take a look!

At any point in the GRITⓇ model, if you find you’re not where you want to be, look back to see what you might need to do differently. GRITⓇ works not only as a roadmap, but it’s a great self-reflection tool as well!

If you don’t have Leading With GRITⓇ yet, this is a great first step to living the life you want to live. Don’t let the title fool you - it’s not just for formal leaders. It’s also about leading yourself, in any area of your life!

Take the free GRITⓇ Assessment!

Cheers,  Laurie