Setting GRIT Goals I

I sometimes ponder about the people who have successful careers – how do they get to be where they are now? The answer would be they all started from the low or first level, to get to where they are now, similar to the concept of setting grit goal.

The concept of setting grit goals is of perseverance of effort and hard work as well as resilience to achieve a long-term, top level, ultimate goal. In order to achieve the ultimate goal, the lower levels and mid-levels must be achieved beforehand.

Setting of grit goals can be anything - for personal, work related, relationships and so on. Example of setting grit goals, firstly for the low-level goals, they can be daily actions like waking up on time for school or work so that we would not be late. Whereas the mid-level goals can be studying or learning at school, it can even be working at the office. The ultimate or end-point goal would be having excelled the subjects we learnt at school, or even excelled the project we’ve been working on at work.

Personally, it was not a long moment spent but it impacted me in a good way whereby it showed me that the ultimate goal can be achieved by setting it into levels. We have to first achieve and complete the low-level goals, followed by mid-level goals and eventually the high-end goal. We had been assigned into teams, in a circle,  the task was everyone have to be passing and catching the balls simultaneously. For the first level or low-level, after everyone had been assigned with a ball, within the team, we’d have to pass and catch the ball, not to and not from the person directly beside us but to the person who was one person away from us.

After many attempts of various strategies, we eventually succeeded proceeded to the next level or mid-level, which is to play with another team. The mid-level was manageable as we utilized the same strategy the strategy we did for the low-level. But the ultimate level, which was to play as a class, was of course the most challenging. We’ve tried even more attempts for the high level than we did for low and mid-levels. But at long last, we did get through it, with the teamwork, patience, perseverance and resilience of everyone.

My way of setting goals now is similar to grit goals’ setting, which is to achieve this goal, I’d have to do this first and do this next, I didn’t really level the things I’d have to do in order to reach my goal. But I did learn new things from grit goals’ setting; The low and mid-levels are stepping stones to the high end goal. And I realised that these two prior levels before the ultimate goal, "train" us so that we can do well at the top goal. Also, I'd have to specify the ultimate goals that I'd really want to attain. Lastly, I'd have to change this particular goal, if this particular goal does not help me to reach to the next level or mid-goal, which is crucial in order to reach the top, end goal.

Date: Year 2 Semester 2 (2022)