What does it take to win an Olympic gold medal? Overcome an addiction? Achieve your most difficult, life-long goals? Caroline Miller, author of Getting Grit and Creating Your Best Life, takes you through the exercises and mindsets that have been proven to cultivate the determination and tenacity that will lift you over any roadblock. She also answers questions about how to identify your life’s calling, why relationships are the most important factor towards your best self, and whether or not passion is enough to master your craft. 

Thanks to Work In Progress for their support! Follow along on Twitter @slackstories or at slack.com/podcast.

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TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:

1. When you’re fighting your faults, your downfalls, your addictions…have hope. It can get better.

2. The state of being hopeless is goal-less. When you have hope you have goals.

3. Pursuing the best version of yourself is the most inspiring thing you can do for others.

4. There’s nothing special that will happen in our lives that isn’t outside of our comfort zones.

5. Have goals that are authentically yours, not someone else’s.

6. Step away from technology for a day. Get awe-struck by things that aren’t instantaneously changing.

7. Build the mindset that things will get hard. Then find the channel that pushes you to keep going.

8. The body only quits something when the brain commands it to stop working.

9. Have humility to say you don’t know something, and be willing to go learn it.

10. Surround yourself with people who bring out the best in you, know what you’re capable of, and push you towards greatness – not mediocrity.

11. Happiness is byproduct of helping others and being thankful.

12. When you’re facing hard challenges, change your internal question from “Why?” to “Why not? Why shouldn’t I go for it?”

 

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• CarolineMiller.com

• Email Caroline at caroline@carolinemiller.com

• Books by Caroline Miller (including Getting Grit, Creating Your Best Life, Your Happiest Life Workbook)

• Angela Duckworth’s TEDTalk, “Grit: The power of passion and perseverance“

• Angela Duckworth’s book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

• Malcolm Gladwell on his 10,000 hours rule

• Definition of grit: Courage and resolve, strength of character

• Synonyms of grit: bravery, backbone, spirit, steel, fortitude, toughness, heartiness, resolve, resolution, determination, tenacity, perseverance

• The story of Kerri Strug and the US women’s gymnastics team in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics

• MindSet by Carol Dweck

• Learn more about fixed, mixed, and growth mindset

• Bite-sized exercises to self-regulate:

  • Get off technology for a day. Pay attention to other people for a day. Get struck by things that aren’t instantaneously changing.

  • Build the mindset that things will get hard. Find a channel that pushes you to keep going (mantra, music, vision, people who you’re doing this for, people who inspire you)

• Short slogans at the 12-step program that helped Caroline strengthen her mindset:

  • First things first

  • Attitude of gratitude

  • One day at a time

  • Keep it simple stupid

  • The first bite is the best

• Caroline’s Best Possible Future Self Exercise

• Social contagion aka behavioral contagion theory – use the power of peer influence to bring out the best in yourself

• JFK’s speech about putting man on the moon

• Google X

• Self-driving cars

• John Lennon’s quote about being happy:

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

• How to make your happiest life:

  • Meditation / mindfulness training (Richard Davidson, Dalai Lama)

  • Act of giving to other people (here’s how to help victims of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma)

  • Gratitude – find reasons to be thankful, say thank you

 

  

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