Resilience, Perseverance and Grit

Resilience is viewed as an ability to bounce back after failure or adversity. Well, I see resilience as not necessary to just bounce back after getting hit, but a quality that keep one to always seek higher standard to improve. The reason for being able to bounce back is because of the flexibility. Failure or adversity does not happen every day; however, the quality of resilience determines how one finds ways to go through each day by acting, adapting, and adjusting. Those who have the quality of resilience keep going.    

I often wonder whether to keep going is the fate of all humans on earth, which is an inevitable act for living. The Bible has the story of Exodus, which is often used as an analogy describing not to settle as slaves but to going on a journey to the promise land, and in the process to have faith that God will deliver us there. It is true that only when we get up and go or do, we can have the chance to see wonders and achieve goals. If we just settle, it is static and likely will not produce growth. I believe we all have the desires to grow or improve the condition we are in. However, not many really take actions. To act requires resilience because it is a process of trials. We do not know what we do will work or not; we also need to overcome stepping out of our comfort zoom – meeting new people, adapting new habits, and learning new things. The quality of resilience keeps us going to seek ways for breakthroughs.

 

The quality of perseverance is similar to resilience but has subtle differences. Perseverance also helps us keep going, but it emphasizes being steadfast, not giving up, while resilience emphasizes being adaptive and adjusting. Grit is another term that describes the similar quality. Angela Duckworth had intense research on grit and published a book called, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. In Duckworth’s study, she defined grit as a combination of passion and perseverance and learned that grit is a stronger predictor of high performance than talent and other personality traits. This makes sense that long term commitment is more promising for success, and time is such a good friend when we can hang in there.          

 

The quality of resilience, perseverance or grit may sound abstract. I think it is due to the complexity of describing personality traits or characteristics. The action outcome produced by these characters is “to keep going” by holding up courage and strength, adapting/adjusting, and not giving up. We may not know whether we have those characters or not. However, we can “keep going”; only when we keep going, we can have those characters.