What is Grit?
Why do we still doubt we can change, even after doing things we once thought were beyond us?
In ultra distance trail running you have a choice in what shoes to wear. Either you wear water proof shoes, generally Goretex, or you don't and allow your feet to breathe. It's a trade off you make. If you choose not to wear the waterproof shoes and you step in a puddle about an hour into a 10 to 15 hour race, issues arise. Along with wet feet being uncomfortable, friction becomes a problem. The friction between your sock and the sole of your foot reduces and your socks start to rub against them. Within a few hours you start to lose skin.
The pain is difficult to describe, it's not excruciating but it's constant. A discomfort that you can ignore initially. But eventually it becomes the centre of your world. Every step you take drives you closer to the brink of quitting.
Why did I do this Godforsaken run? No one will care if you stop. I might do permanent damage to my foot. Finishing this race won't bring her back.
Your mind tries to find any excuse that could justify stopping.
Why can some of us endure this and some of us not? This is a question I have been thinking about a lot recently. Eighteen months ago I hadn't run more than 10kms in my life. I hadn't pushed myself particularly hard in any facet for a while really. And now I am here. What changed? What hardened my resolve that allowed me to get to where I am now?
I have always been terrified by the thought that we might never really be in control of who we become. We make decisions based on the people we are, but we did not choose much of what made us this way. I find it difficult to stop that thought from becoming something more pervasive: what if we could see the person we wanted to become, sincerely want to change, and still spend our lives unable to get there?
That fear is still with me. I have achieved things I would have considered impossible for me a short while ago, and I still question whether I can change. I thought those achievements would have settled the matter. But honestly, they have not.
The question also follows me into considerably less dramatic settings.
For example, my arch nemesis in the gym is mobility work. Almost every time I go, I have an internal conflict for at least ten minutes about whether I should do some stretching after completing a lovely arm day with the lads.
The lads
Generally, I don't do it. I know why I want to do it. I still leave it out.
But occasionally, I just decide I do not have the option, and do it. I think what happens on those occasions is that I stop asking whether I feel like it. I have already decided I want the benefit. For once, I let that decision survive the predictable discovery that I would rather leave.
While I am doing it, it feels inconsequential. But over time I can feel the cumulative benefit. There is also the small fact that I did something I usually talk myself out of. That gives me something to remember the next time the argument starts.
This is where I believe grit lives. We notice it in the person still moving twelve hours into a race, or the people on stage talking about the future of the world, but perhaps much of it is developed on ordinary days. The runs when we are tired. The late nights working when we are alone. Small decisions, made repeatedly, with nobody particularly interested in whether we make them or not.
I still skip the stretching. I am reluctant to claim a permanent change in character on the strength of occasionally doing something I had already planned to do. But the next time I tell myself I cannot change, there is that small, inconvenient exception.
I do not want to believe grit is something some of us have innately. I don't think there is much use in believing so anyway.
Maybe it's that simple, we get some practice at doing things we doubt we can do or hate to do. Sometimes they go badly. Sometimes we discover that we were capable of more than we thought. Either way, we have something more to go on the next time.
We may still have doubts about where we are going and whether we will get there. But there is enough we can do today to make trying worthwhile. And if it is the case that we can not really change the outcomes of our destinies. There is no harm in trying.