Book Review: Getting Grit

Caroline Adams Miller; Getting Grit: The Evidence based approach to cultivating passion, perseverance and purpose.

In creating Project Passion I had compiled a great selection of strategies for getting more done. (Many of them are in my book Done) When I read this book I realized I’d made a really big mistake – I’d left out perhaps the most important and probably the least sexy of them all: grit.

That was my attempt to find easy ways to get things done. That’s important. And at some point – probably more often than I’d like to admit – you simply need to tough it out to get things done. Essentially, you need grit.

Upon reflection, grit might just be the most important strategy of all for getting things done.

Surprisingly, this wasn’t the first book I’ve read about grit and resilience. I’ve probably read 6-8 other books. Some were by Navy Seals, others by academics and even a collection of articles from Harvard Business School.

Getting Grit by Caroline Adams Miller is the best of all of them.

Three Things

Three things stand out for me about this book:

1. Caroline has been there and done it. She has faced her own demons over an eating disorder plus she has written five books. Today she coaches people – plenty of good personal stories.
2. The book is based on Positive Psychology. It’s not all blood sweat and tears. It’s grit because you want to live a happy and fulfilling life.
3. The exercises in this book are superb – If inclined, you could run your own workshop simply based on these exercises. I think this created the breakthrough for me. Doing these activities changed me. I could now see new possibilities if I just stuck at things for longer. That makes this book well and truly worth reading.

The Pathway to Getting Grit

Caroline’s pathway to Getting Grit includes:

• Develop passion and purpose
• Be happy
• Set tough goals
• Self-regulate
• Take risks
• Be humble
• Persevere
• Be Patient

Plus she elegantly discusses the difference between Stubborn Grit, Faux Grit, Selfie Grit and Authentic Grit.

[bctt tweet=”#buythisbook #gettinggrit by @CarolineMCoach if you want to get big things done.” via=”no”]

More…

• Caroline Adams Miller – The Getting Grit Website
• Not sure you need it? Take Angela Duckworth’s Grit Score test – it’s only 10 questions, it will take only a couple of minutes and it will leave you knowing how gritty you truly are. I scored a rather low 2.60 – that’s one reason I needed this book. [Postscript: As of May 2019, my Grit Score is now 3.70 and rising. Up 42%.]
• Buy this book if you want to get big things done.
• We rapped this book over at Book Rapper as True Grit