In a World That Keeps Shifting, Grit Is What Keeps Us Oriented
- Katie Mead
- 24 hours ago
- 3 min read
In a world that doesn’t seem to be settling, what does it actually mean to stay the course?
We often talk about grit as though it’s a personality trait: something you either have or you don’t, a kind of built-in toughness that helps some people push through while others fall away.
But perhaps the current moment asks something different of us.
It asks not just whether we are tough, but whether we can remain oriented: to what matters, to who we are, and to the direction we are trying to move in, even as the ground continues to shift.
Grit, at its core, is not intensity: it is sustained alignment
Angela Duckworth’s definition still holds:
“Passion and perseverance for long-term goals.”
But what often gets missed is the long-term part; the quiet, repeated returning to something over time, especially when the outcome is uncertain and the motivation is no longer immediate.
“Grit is a marathon, not a sprint.”
This is not about short bursts of effort. Instead, it is about continuity.
Why this matters now is hard to ignore
We are living through prolonged uncertainty - socially, politically, environmentally - and there is no clear endpoint to orient ourselves toward.
In this kind of landscape, quick wins lose their relevance.
What begins to matter instead is:
The ability to stay engaged without guarantees
The willingness to continue without immediate reward
The discipline of returning, again and again, to what matters
Talent may open the door, but effort sustained over time is what allows anything meaningful to take shape.
But grit without purpose doesn’t hold
It is easy to mistake persistence for endurance alone, and to believe that grit is simply about pushing harder or lasting longer: it isn’t.
It is purpose that stabilizes perseverance.
Without a clear sense of why something matters, effort becomes depleting, but with purpose, that same effort becomes organizing. It gives direction to energy and it creates coherence over time.
And for parents this is not theoretical
Children do not learn grit from instruction; they learn it through observation, i.e. through the patterns we repeat, the ways we respond, and how we hold ourselves when things are difficult.
They are watching how we manage uncertainty far more closely than they are listening to what we say about it.
They see:
Whether we stay committed or withdraw
How we speak to ourselves under pressure
What we do when things don’t go as planned
And from that, they build their own understanding of what it means to persist.
Which brings us to a more difficult question
Not simply: “Are you resilient?” But:
What are you actually committed to over time?
What holds your attention when things feel unstable?
What allows you to return, rather than disengage?
Because grit, if it is going to last, requires self-support
There is a version of grit that looks like grinding: pushing through at all costs, ignoring limits, overriding signals...and that version doesn’t sustain.
The form that does is quieter and more deliberate. It involves:
Regulating rather than forcing
Recommitting rather than criticizing
Staying connected to purpose rather than reacting to pressure
Effort counts twice. Not just in building skill, but in shaping something that actually matters.
Bottom line
In a world that continues to feel unpredictable and, at times, unsteady, grit is less about how hard you push and more about how consistently you can return.
Return to your values. Return to your direction. Return to yourself.