Grit

Most people think grit looks like endless hustle and 5 a.m. workouts. We take you past the highlight reel and into the quiet, internal moment when you want to quit—and show how to turn that friction into forward motion. Drawing on Angela Duckworth’s research and years of coaching experience, we break down why grit beats talent when things get tough, and how to build it like a muscle with practical, science-backed tools.

We start by separating motivation from resolve. Motivation is loud and fleeting; resolve is calm, heavy, and final. You’ll learn how to trigger resolve on demand by changing your state—standing tall, breathing deep, using cold water or brisk movement—so your physiology supports your psychology. From there, we explore the comfort zone paradox: seek constant ease and your world shrinks; embrace manageable discomfort and your capacity grows. That shift makes hard tasks feel more routine, letting you save willpower for bigger goals.

Next, we stack identity on top of why. A strong why pulls you forward, but identity keeps you honest: I am someone who keeps promises to myself. We show you how to use the “one more” contract—one more rep, call, paragraph—to make grit a series of short, repeatable pushes. And we explain why praising effort over results builds intrinsic motivation, prevents burnout, and trains your brain to like the strain that leads to growth.

By the end, you’ll have a simple playbook: prime your state, summon resolve, remember your why, lean on identity, do one more, and celebrate the effort. Close the back door, feel the click in your gut, and take the next step. If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick review—what’s one place you’ll stop negotiating with yourself this week?

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**Legal Disclaimer**
The Sage Solutions Podcast and content posted by David Sage is presented solely for general informational, educational, and entertainment purposes. No coaching client relationship is formed by listening to this podcast. No Legal, Medical or Financial advice is being given. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user's own risk. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice, diagnosis, or treatment of a psychotherapist, physician, professional coach, Lawyer or other qualified professional. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions. The opinions of guests are their own and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of the podcast.

Chapters

• 0:00 Redefining Grit Beyond Hype
• 2:40 Courage, Talent, And The Grit Myth
• 5:00 Duckworth’s Research And Findings
• 8:10 Resolve Versus Motivation
• 12:20 Expand Your Comfort Zone
• 15:00 Physiology To Shift State
• 19:20 Start With Why And Identity

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Welcome to the Sage Solutions podcast, where we talk about all things personal growth, personal development, and becoming your best self. My name is David Sage, and I'm a self-worth and confidence coach with Sage Coaching Solutions. I want to start today by asking you to go to a specific place in your mind. Picture this moment. It's late Thursday night, and you're staring at a mess in the living room, and you just feel heavy. It's not just tired, it's this specific friction-field sensation that says, I don't think I have any gas left in the tank. We talk a lot in personal development about pushing through and taking action. We see the Instagram reels of people waking up at 5 a.m. drinking raw eggs and sprinting up hills. And we tend to label that and we put all of that and we think, man, they have discipline. They have grit. And they probably do. I'm not saying they don't. But by stereotyping grit this way, we misrepresent the entire concept. So in this episode, I want to slow down and take a second to talk about this. Just you and me. About what actually is happening in that moment of friction. Because I think most of us misunderstand grit. In a very similar way to how many people misunderstand courage. Many people believe that courage is being fearless. But courage is really about facing or overcoming your fears, feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Grit is not about easily taking action. People that can just naturally do things and it's not hard for them, that doesn't take grit. We think of gritty people and we think that it's all about being harder, tougher, and more calloused. But what I've found in my own personal experience, by looking through the research and in my coaching, grit is usually not a shout, it's not a scream. Most grit is a quiet thing. It's an internal struggle that we push through. Similar to courage, it's a personal battle. But I think we've done a disservice to that word. We treat grit like it's a character trait that you're born with, like blue eyes or being tall. We think you either have it or you don't. But that's bullshit. Life is like a muscle, and just about any skill or trait can be built and honed over time. I believe that human beings have the ability to get better, sharper, and more capable. I believe grit isn't a magical trait. It's a skill. More specifically, it's a muscle that we build just like any other skill. But grit is really a compound muscle. It's a whole series of skills that we build at the same time into the into this compound muscle of grit. But if you want to build grit, you're gonna have to lean into a specific feeling. And if you can learn to recognize that feeling, to harness and grow that feeling, to just let yourself feel it in your body, pour fuel on it, embrace it. You can change the trajectory of your entire life. Today, yes, today we are talking about grit. But you're gonna have to lean in to resolve. You're going to have to lean in to the feeling of resolve. But before we get into it, our goal with this podcast is to share free, helpful tools with you and anyone you know who is looking to improve their life. So take action, subscribe, and share this podcast with them. So let's buckle down and ground this in something real. Because like many other words in personal development, grit has become a little bit of a buzzword. Right? I mean, you literally see it on coffee mugs. But, scientifically speaking, it is a very specific variable. And if we want to get into the science, we really can't talk about it without talking about the pioneer of grit research, Dr. Angela Duckworth. If you haven't read her work, I'll give you a Cliff Notes version. Back in the mid-2000s, Duckworth went to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. If you know anything about West Point, you know you've probably heard of the Beast Barracks. It's seven weeks of pure unadulterated intensity designed to break people. These are the best of the best, oftentimes varsity athletes and valedictorians. They have the IQ, they have the physical fitness, heck, they even have the training, but every year a large chunk of them drop out before the summer is over. Duckworth wanted to know who stays? Is it the smartest ones? No. Is it the ones with the highest SAT scores? No. Is it the ones who can do the most push-ups? Surprisingly, no, not really. She found that the people who made it through were the ones with the most grit. And her findings didn't end there. She found that the single biggest predictor of success in life wasn't talent. It was this thing that we call grit. The definition that's used is passion and perseverance for long-term goals. Here's the part that really fascinated me when I was reading her book, titled Grit. The study showed that grit is unrelated or even inversely related to talent. Meaning sometimes, if things come easily to you, you are actually at a disadvantage when the friction hits. Because you haven't built the muscle of grit. You never learned how to generate that second wind, how to push through, how to harness your resolve. Now, this is all great. The science is really interesting, but I want to pivot. Duckworth gave us a definition and the science. But that alone will not give you the feeling that drives your grit. So let's get into how you cultivate grit and build that muscle. Now, in this podcast, I'm going to go into resolve a little less because I recently just did a podcast about resolve. So if you're interested in how to build resolve, I highly suggest going back and listening to our recent episode that covers it. So let's get into grit and talk about how it feels. I want you to think about a time in your life when you drew a line in the sand. Maybe it was a bad relationship that you finally ended. Maybe it was a business you decided you would not let fail. Do you remember the feeling right before you made that decision? It wasn't excitement, it wasn't motivation. Motivation is high energy. It's inspiration. It's kind of bubbly, unreliable, and cheap. This feeling was different, wasn't it? It was heavy. It was cold, but it was calm. That feeling is resolve. I think I should make another distinction here between motivation and resolve. Motivation is about feeling inspired and wanting to do something. Resolve is about making a decision, a commitment. The decision was made long ago. It's already done. It is the feeling of sticking to your guns. An emotional manifestation of integrity, of why. When you are just motivated, you're still negotiating with yourself. You're asking, do I feel like doing this? When you summon up resolve, there is no negotiation. The decision was made. You are burning your boats and locking the exit. You can feel it in your gut. There's a somatic response, almost a release. It feels like both attention and a relaxation, a drive to do and an acceptance of. Stop looking for motivation. Don't get me wrong, embrace it when it's there. Instead, look for that feeling, that gut feeling, the click in your stomach, the moment where you say, I am doing this, even if it sucks. There's another upward spiral I want to talk about here. By doing things that make you uncomfortable, you actually expand your comfort zone, meaning that you are comfortable in more situations. If you want to become the paradox of comfort, is if you constantly try and be comfortable, you will shrink your comfort zone and become comfortable less often. But if you embrace discomfort, I'm not talking about pain or suffering, just discomfort, you will expand your comfort zone and be comfortable in many more situations. Paradoxically becoming more comfortable and doing things that require grit, that require courage, summoning up that resolve, and sometimes when you need the extra boost, willpower will help you accomplish that. But as your comfort zone expands, it will take less grit to do the same things, which means you can use the same amount of grit to do even more. So let's get into the nitty-gritty and build this gritty muscle. Sorry. Because we can't wait for a life-altering crisis to put us in a position to feel resolve. We need it for daily life. We need it for the gym. We need it for our relationships. We need it for work. Based on what we know about psychology and physiology, here are several ways to build grit. We know from the teachings of Tony Robbins, as well as people like Andrew Huberman, who have gone through the neuroscience, that it's very, very hard to think your way out of a bad feeling. It's much easier to move your way out. I talk a lot about this in my coaching. There is an inherent link between your brain and your body. Your body language and your physiology have a direct impact on your psychology and your neuroscience, the way your brain reacts to things. And both levers affect each other. It is a two-way cycle. If you want to feel more confident, adopting confident body language is a great start because it reduces the friction and starts to change your emotional state. We can use the same thought process for grit. If motion creates emotion, taking action or making physical changes, and emotions drive your motion, your physiology, and your actions, we know that physiology is one of the quickest ways to change your emotional state. We had a whole episode on this called State Change. When you feel like giving up, take a look at your body. Are you sitting slumped over? Are you laying down? Are your shoulders hunched? Are you looking down? Is your breathing shallow? All of these things are signaling, I'm tired, I don't wanna, I wanna give up, I'm defeated. There's a reason Tony talks a lot about state, whether it be priming your state or changing your state. Before you try and mentally push through, change your state, stand up, take some deep breaths, take up space, use some use temperature like cold water, move. You need to prime your biology to handle the friction. Find the physiology that naturally brings out your feeling of resolve. After you've used your body to shake up your emotional state, then prime yourself with resolve. And when you think about resolve, remember resolve is different from making a decision. The decision was already made. Because you can decide to go on a diet while you're eating a donut. Decisions can be powerful, but they are just thoughts. Resolve is a feeling. Resolve is somatic. It's physical. You feel it in your body. Have you ever seen a parent whose child is in danger? They don't think about moving to save their kid. They move. They snap into action. There's almost a terrifyingly calm clarity that hits them in that moment. It is a yin and a yang, a bodily feeling of emotional tension and stoic calm. It's burning your boats, blocking your exit. It's remembering why. Which brings us to number two. Start with why. You needed a why to make a decision or a commitment to something that will bring you resolve in the first place. You won't have resolve if you don't have a strong why. Think about why you want this. Not a weak why. Keep asking why till you get a strong why. And then remember that when you're struggling to summon resolve. When you're feeling the urge to quit, you can make a contract with yourself. Just call it the one more contract. Just do one more unit of effort. One more than is necessary. One more so that you are regularly in small ways pushing yourself. This is a great way to build the muscle of grit. You don't have to finish the whole project. Just do one more. One more than is comfortable. One more paragraph. One more rep. One more phone call. Grit isn't a marathon. It's a series of sprints. You're just trying to get to the next lamppost. We already talked about why, but what about who? Nietzsche famously said, he who has a why to live can bear almost any how. Remembering the why is powerful. But Nietzsche also talks about he who has. You are the one. Remember who you are. When the how gets painful, your brain will tell you to stop. One of the best ways to override that survival signal is to attach the pain to a higher purpose. Don't do it for success. Do it for the person you are becoming. Do it because you said you would. That identity, I am a person who keeps my promises, is an incredibly powerful fuel. I am someone who does what they say they're going to do. I am a man of integrity. And then, of course, don't forget the last way, which is to reward the effort, not the result. Now, this is something that Andrew Huberman talks a lot about. And we even really did a full episode on this called intrinsic motivation. If you only celebrate when you win, you will burn out during the process. You have to learn to get the dopamine hit from the friction itself, from the effort to which builds this pathway of intrinsic motivation. When things get hard, tell yourself, this feeling right here, the strain, this is my grit growing. This I like overcoming challenges. I like pushing myself. I can do this. Good job. I'm proud of you. This is the good part. You can learn to lean into the friction, to overcome obstacles, and to become unstoppable. As we wrap up, I want to leave you with a challenge. The world is a noisy place. It's easy to get cynical. It's easy to just look for shortcuts. And if we're being honest, occasionally there are great tips, tricks, and tools, like the five-second rule. But most of the time, in fact, almost always, the only way through is through. It's almost always a path through the middle, and it's rarely easy. This week, identify one place where you've been negotiating with yourself, one place where you've left that back door open. Close it. Find that feeling of resolve. Feel that clinch, the click in your stomach, and then take one more step. Push yourself. Build that muscle. Remind yourself that you are getting grittier every time you push yourself. Remind yourself why you're doing it and who you are becoming. Praise the effort, not the result. Now, if you're looking for someone to help you navigate that friction, you can feel free to reach out to me at Sage Coaching Solutions. Just email us at SageCoaching Solutions at gmail.com. And remember, you are enough and you deserve to fill up your inner cup. With happiness, true confidence, and resilience. Thank you for listening to the Sage Solutions podcast. Your time is valuable, and I'm so glad you choose to learn and grow here with me. If you haven't already, don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on more Sage advice. One last thing. The Legal Language. This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. No coaching client relationship is formed. It is not intended as a substitute for the personalized advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.