If grace is love that we receive when we don’t necessarily deserve it then it seems reasonable to me that to reach the goals we really want, or say we want, grace may not be what we truly need.

There is a narrative online and off in the world of recreational athletes(especially endurance) that we should give ourselves grace when we don’t feel like training or giving our best selves to the goals we so deeply want to achieve. The intent is noble, and caring, and loving but the truth is that grace can be applied after a failure more easily than as an excuse to not do the work in the first place.

To put it in a different way, using grace as the reason you don’t get off the couch today is not how grace should work. It feels like the equivalent of giving a child a cupcake if they promise the eat their vegetables later.

I had a runner client years ago. Every day started with some catastrophe in his life. The dog did this and work did that and he couldn’t get the work done. Not because he physically couldn’t do the work but because he decided he needed to give himself a break from all of the awful things that conspired against him that day. They only truly affected his mindset, not his ability to get things done for his goals. We can ALL frame and justify to the ends of the earth that things outside of our control have more power over us than they do. Being honest though, we know. We know we have it in us to be who and what we want to be but using grace as the ultimate enabler is not the way.

Grace is not an enabler. It’s compassion. Compassion for our shortcomings and if you do the work and still fall short then yes, have grace for yourself.

So if we are not using grace to help us with the bigger picture, what should we use to be better, more honest versions of ourselves when it comes to audacious goals? Grit seems to fit the bill.

Grit however it is defined, and it is defined many ways by many people smarter than I, as courage and resolve of character. To me, it’s the ability to wake up every day and put in a good effort without promise of success. It’s the ability to stay positive when things are most definitely not going the way you planned. Grit is the ability to know your shortcomings but to never give up despite them.

I used to train and coach a bunch of basketball players from the high school to the professional ranks. Every once in a while during one on one type drills you would see a player that was completely overmatched. Skill and strength and power and physique wise this athlete had no business competing. There were two likely outcomes.

The first, the under-matched athlete would try his hardest, play the whole game as hard as he could and at the end of the game, know exactly where he was on the scale. With this information he could work on his weaknesses and get better where he needed. This athlete had grit.

The other athlete’s match went like this: After a few minutes they would decide they were no match for the better hooper and literally give up. They wouldn’t all out quit but their effort dropped and they would lose without a fight. They decided that since they can win, why even try.

I have seen this in every athletic arena and the culprit is that some people have not developed that grit yet, or ever.

It doesn’t just happen on the court though.

It probably happens in training more than anywhere. The runner who misses a couple days of training and decides on their own that if they missed those than the training is “ruined”.

It’s the athlete that hires the virtual coach but doesn’t show up to do the work every day only to blame the coach for their shortcomings when the goal doesn’t get reached.

It’s the snooze button addicted parent who has plenty of time to reach their goals if only they’d wake on that first “beep”.

It’s the New Year’s day gym pirate that lasts three days before settling back in to their December 15th routine.

We all have it in us and I am as guilty as anyone.

So the solution, or a solution, choose grit over grace.

Grit is the friend that pushes you over the wall you are climbing no matter how high or daunting and Grace is the friend that helps you heal from the fall.

Grit makes sure you run your 7 miles on a Tuesday morning in the cold January air and Grace is the warm coffee you sip knowing you got it done.

Grit is the fire in your soul to beat cancer when the doctors gave you three months to live like they did to my dad when he was 24 in the early 80’s. Grace is the 40 extra years he got to spend with us.

With friends like Grit and Grace you can’t go wrong but if you have to choose one, Grace is nice but Grit is better.

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