This blog is broken into the following parts: the background story || habit tip || 4 simple steps to grow your grit || challenge || further support, including a meditation. Click on the previous links to jump right to that content.

Discipline, grit, and the honeybee

When I was thinking about this month’s theme of discipline and grit, the honeybee kept fluttering into my awareness. My boyfriend just picked his new hives up, his bees have settled into and accepted their queen and new home, and my cousin’s husband has taught me lots about his own bees. 

The past few months I’ve talked about the power of vision, trusting in the seeds you’ve planted, and intuition, discipline and grit felt like the perfect next chapter in this series. Without a clear vision for your life and dreams it’s difficult to know where to apply grit. It takes great discipline to maintain faith, keep working in spite of not yet seeing results, and to practice honing and following your intuition. 

The honeybee represents the art of merging all of these together. Their vision is to protect and nurture their queen. Day in and day out they use their internal compass to guide them to nectar, and they keep going, trusting that sweet results away. They also use the power of their hive whether it’s to cool it or to learn where there’s even better nectar. See below for an easy to read explanation of how they do this generated by ChatGPT.

Why are grit and discipline so important to nurture and grow? And yes, there is science behind this… grit is growable over time. 

When it comes to achieving success, talent and intelligence are not always enough. Sometimes, the key factor that separates those who achieve their goals from those who don’t is grit. Grit is a combination of passion, perseverance, and resilience in the face of adversity. In other words, it’s the ability to stick with something long-term, even when it’s difficult or uncomfortable.

Growing your grit is important because it allows you to achieve your goals despite setbacks and obstacles. When you have grit, you are more likely to push through challenges and keep going when others give up. This is essential for success in any area of life, whether it’s in your career, relationships, or personal growth.

Habit tip

One habit tip I utilize to support me in this is a deep sense of curiosity to what’s underneath my actions or inaction. I often ask myself the below question. As a perfectionist I have in my past often been a procrastinator. I’ve learned that it’s important for me to replace the shame and guilt I feel for procrastinating with wonder. Is it a cue that there’s a better way and a better time?

Real-life example

This really showed up in my life a couple of years ago as I was trying and failing to launch my first website. I’d sit down, stare at my computer, worry about it looking horrible, take a deep sigh, close my computer and walk away. And the shame spiral began, this was important to me, it was important for the new career and life I was building, WHY couldn’t I crack the code and just do?

Thank goodness at this very same time I was learning coaching tools and prompts. I now had more in my toolkit to get me out of my own way. 

Questions I began to ask myself:

• What am I really afraid of? Being responsible and being seen more out in the world. 
• Am I using the right platform that fits how I work? Nope… turns out squarespace and my brain are not compatible partners. Shopify and showit are!
• Am I overcomplicating things and where can I simplify? Yes… I absolutely was. 7 website pages in my head turned to one simple landing page that I could build on. 
• Do I need to honor the 80s kid in me and start analog – with pen and sketchpad? YES! Whenever I start something new I need to sketch putting pen to paper first. These are my favorites: sketchpad & pens
• Where do I need to shift a mindset? From this is HARD to this is FUN!
• Is there someone I can ask for help? Yes, thank you Michael Lambie for being a great mentor
• What am I more committed to? Hiding and working for others rather than being accountable to me

The answers helped me shift and within days of doing the above my first website was born. This mental work and curiosity is another way grit and discipline show up – they’re not always sweat equity and elbow grease. 

4 additional steps to grow your grit and bee deliberate with your discipline.

If you prefer to listen to video. Check out this playlist on youtube for the 4 steps.

Step 1: Know your why

What & why: When you are connected to your why behind a dream, a goal, an action everything becomes easier. The hardest days don’t seem as hard because your vision, your why propels you forward. A farmer toils and prepares their land because they want to honor the land and feed many. 

How to: Before you can grow your grit in a certain area of your life, first you need to ask yourself why you want this? Why is it important to you to work towards this? Write your dream and why down somewhere, preferably where you can see it. It’s important on tough days to go back to this, and it will be balm to any hardship.

Step 2: Commit to consistent action

What & why: Because of our social media instant gratification world we often think that success happens overnight. I hate to break it to you, it doesn’t. Success does happen by committing to take a tiny action step towards your dream daily. Some of the most successful writers, write for hours every day, and did so before they were deemed successful. Consistent micro-action is how you keep your tanks full and hone your craft. 

How to: Think of the dream and the why you wrote down in step 1. What’s one tiny step you could take everyday to be closer to realizing that dream by the end of the year? Schedule it, build it in, commit to doing it. 

Step 3: Rejoice & rejuvenate

What & why: We often forget to celebrate successful steps that get us to our goal because we believe abstaining from what brings us joy, rest, relaxation will help us reach the end goal faster. Proven false by countless studies. I remember when I was training for the NYC marathon, rest was on the schedule and just as important as our other training days. We grease the wheels of our grit and discipline by building in days of joy and rest that rejuvenate us. 

How to: Celebrate when you’ve done 7 days of the tiny action step you committed to in step 2. If you’re feeling stuck, walk away and take a rest. As I’m writing this, I got stuck, I snuggled my doggo, and all of a sudden the writing comes easier. Build in breaks and fun things to motivate you to keep going. 

Step 4: Hive matters

What & why: Your community is where the real magic in discipline and grit lie. Not only are you influenced by the people you surround yourself by, but you also can lean on them for help when you’re stuck or just need an accountability buddy. Like the bee, leverage and lean on your community (celebrate with them too — they also want to celebrate you!). We think leaning on others makes us a burden, but countless studies show humans generally like to support others, especially in something they’re good at, let them give that to you!

How to: Ask yourself honestly where you feel most stuck. Would asking someone who’s good in this area help you move forward with more ease? Or is it simply the nurturing of an accountability partner, someone that will celebrate you taking that small step daily? Reach out, and ask, I promise you will be surprised in the most beautiful way. 

Meditation is another tool I use when my grit could use nurturing. Here is a brief meditation I wrote and recorded to support you.