At least in the United States, there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel of the pandemic. Over 28 percent of the country has received at least one shot of the vaccine and infection rates are trending down. As you take stock of the past year of the pandemic, how would you assess your accomplishments?

Over the past 13 months, I stood up a company, wrote a book, got a dog, and rode my bike over 7,000 miles. I’d say I had a pretty year full of growth, development, and the accomplishment of my long-term goals. In a word, gritty.

Since December I have shared some of my ideas about growing your personal grit. Personal grit is “the will to persevere to achieve long term goals.” A person’s grit is built upon six components: a purpose, a goal, their perseverance, their resilience, their courage to deal with the fear of failure, and their motivation. If you want to learn more, I will be publishing Grow Your Grit: Overcome Obstacles, Thrive, and Accomplish Your Goals on July 12, 2021. Head to Amazon to reserve your copy now.

I was fortunate enough to get invited to talk about grit, the book, and some of my military service on the Vertical Momentum podcast with its wonderful host and fellow veteran Richard Kaufman. We talk about grit in business and life. The podcast link is here.

Each of these aspects of growing your personal grit had a separate blog post:

• Personal purpose — A purpose is your personal why. Read more in Post #96

• Goal setting — A goal is a desired outcome in the future. See more to set better goals in Post #86

• Perseverance — The persistence in doing something difficult. Read more in Post #94

• Resilience — The capacity to recover from difficulties or toughness. Read more on building a resilient mindset as well as ensuring you are getting enough sleep, eating right, working out, and practicing mindfulness in Post #97

• Courage — The management of the fear of failure. See more on three techniques to help manage your fears inPost #98

• Motivation — the internal or external fuel that feeds the grit fire. Read more in Post #99

• Personal Grit Checklist — A comprehensive checklist to get you started on growing your grit is described in Post #102

When we bring these six elements together, we create grit. Grit helps people and organizations accomplish extraordinary goals.

However, it’s not enough to just read about and contemplate your grit. Take these articles, re-read them, and develop a plan to build your personal grit. Understand your personal purpose, select a goal, and get to work. If you are stuck, use the checklist to help get you going.

As I wrote, thought, and talked about grit, I have found I enjoy hearing gritty stories of both success and failure. If you have a good one from the past year, send me an email here and we can set up a call so I can hear your gritty story.