Lesson 21 - Grit and Determination
Grit | Determination | Setting Goals If you have extra time . . .
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Quotes:
- "We all have dreams. But, in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort." - Jesse Owens
- "Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do." - Nelson Mandela
- "Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination." - Fitzhugh Dodson
- "It takes ten thousand hours to truly master anything. Time spent leads to experience; experience leads to proficiency; and the more proficient you are the more valuable you'll be." - Malcolm Gladwell, Author
Two Examples of the "10,000 Hours" Rule:
- The Beatles
In 1960, the Beatles were invited to play in Hamburg, Germany. The clubs in Hamburg didn’t pay well; the acoustics weren’t good; the audience didn’t care much about what they were listening to. What made this experience exceptional was the sheer length of time the bands were expected to play: sets were 8 hours long, and they played seven days a week. By the time the Beatles began having major success in 1964, they had played live performances approximately twelve hundred times (more than most bands today ever play live in their lifetimes). Their stint in Hamburg was actually an extraordinary opportunity for practice. 8-hour live sets are almost unheard of, and the Beatles played live more than most of their contemporaries. As with so many other outliers, chance opportunity and thousands of hours of practice set the Beatles apart and put them on a course to achieve tremendous success. - Bill Gates
Bill Gates’s story is well known—he is widely recognized as a man who rose to the top of his field through “sheer brilliance and ambition and guts.” But, the story is more complicated than that. Gates went to a private high school in Seattle,
which had a computer club that offered students access to a time-shared computer—most colleges didn’t have computer clubs at this time. Bill Gates, a mere 8th grader in 1968, had a highly unusual opportunity. His first great opportunity was a convergence of wealth, privilege, and extraordinary good fortune and timing: he had easy access to a computer in the 1960s, decades before computers became mainstream. This stroke of good luck and timing gave Gates the opportunity to become an expert at computer programming well ahead of his time, which later put him in the perfect position to start Microsoft at the dawn of the personal computer revolution. By the time Gates started his own software company, “he was way past ten thousand hours.”
- When you go to bed at night, do you ever think about the things you'd like to do the next day?
- When you wake up in the morning, do you ever think about all the things you'd like to do that day?
- Do you ever write lists of things you need to do or things you want to remember?
- Have you ever thought about something you wanted to do and then tried to work out how to make it happen?
- Do you find it easier to do something or learn something if you are clear what the end point will be?
- Do you find you work harder when you are doing something you are interested in or enjoy?
- Do you feel better when you know exactly what you are supposed to be doing?
- Do you feel less stressed when you know you are doing the things you should be doing?
- Have you ever set yourself a 'goal' to achieve either at school or in your personal life?
- Have you ever done something that you found hard or challenging but you persisted because you wanted to make it to the end?
If you answered 'Yes' to less than 5 of the above questions, you haven't spent too much time setting goals so it will be an exciting experience to your to try it and see how powerful it really is!
- Do you prefer to (a) plan activities with your friends well in advance, or (b) would you rather just arrange things on the spur of the moment?
- Do you prefer to (a) buy holiday and birthday presents at least a few weeks before, or (b) do you tend to buy your presents at the last minute?
- Do you prefer to (a) look ahead to the school holidays and think about how to spend the holidays, or (b) do you just wake up each morning and decide that day what you will do?
- Do you prefer to (a) make decisions straight away as soon as you have to, or (b) put off your decisions to the last possible minute?
- Do you prefer to (a) talk about what you and your friends will do when you meet up, or (b) just meet up and then see what happens?
- Do you prefer to (a) think about the things that are coming up in the next few weeks, or (b) just focus on what is happening that day?
If you had mostly 'b' answers, you are probably more of a short-term goal peron as you really like to not worry too much about the future. This is a great way to be but every now and then we need to stop and spend some time planning for the future too.