Why are some people successful while others are not.  What distinguishes a top leader, manager , sales person, student, athlete and so on.

Are there specific attributes associated with success.  Things like, intelligence, emotional maturity, physical capability?  Intuitively the answer is yes, but is there something else?

Is there an attribute that is always present to a high degree, which is a critical underpinning to skills and capabilities.  This is a question phycologists have been exploring for years.

Being Successful

I recently heard about some interesting studies of sucessfull salesmen, athletes and students that found the top performers sometimes had high intelligence and/or strong emotional maturity and/ or powerful physicality, but not always.

These factors might be present, or might not (just average or low levels).  This leads to the conclusion these factors are not necessarily or perhaps not at all determinent of success.

Grit

The one attribute that was present in high levels, in every case, was grit.  The higher your grit , the greater likelihood you would be successful.

Being a gritty person means that the one tends to stick to their goals despite numerous issues, problems, setbacks and failures. The person has firmness of mind and unyielding courage.

The theory is when you treat life as a long term journey, not a series of side trips, struggles are the norm and something to overcome.   Something that in fact can and will be overcome.

There is no need to start over or stew and wine over a bump in the , and there will probably be many, those with grit just soldier on to success.

Aquired Attribute

While only a theory, and techniques how to teach or learn grit are still in early development phases just believing in the value of grit is a start on your path to continued accomplishment and success.