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Stick with It! 4 Tips for Tenacity

by Patty Freedman

Feel like giving up sometimes? You are not alone. Being an educator or parent can be overwhelming. We can develop more skills to help us stick with it. In this month’s newsletter, we explore Tenacity (a close friend of resilience). Keep reading for EQ research and resources you can use for you, your faculty and students.

What’s in this edition:

?  Thinking About: Move over Resilience– It’s time for Tenacity

?  Research says: Rethinking “Do what I say not what I do”

?  Try it Yourself: 4 Tips for Tenacity

?  Mark your calendar: Events for educators – will you join us?

? THINKING ABOUT: Move over Resilience– It’s time for Tenacity

Have you heard about the latest parenting goal post? In the book Tenacity in Children: Nurturing the Seven Instincts for Lifetime Success, Behavioral Psychologists Goldstein and Brooks identify the role of tenacity for child development.

If Resilience is the ability to bounce back from setbacks, Grit is the courage to to face adversity, then Tenacity is the gas in the tank, the fire in belly or internal push that keeps you going.

“Tenacity is the strength of will, strong mindedness, and sense of purpose needed to fuel self-discipline and resilience. Tenacity is rooted in a mindset of stalwart belief. Tenacity is a third of what we consider the essential triad of human development– resilience, self-discipline and tenacity” (Goldstein and Brooks, 2021).

Many parents of strong willed children (I’m remembering a particular morning with my toddler refusing to put on their shoes) recognize tenacity and may not see the upside in the moment. As children grow into adults, however, the value of “sticking with it” becomes more evident.

Tenacity is closely related to Six Seconds’ Brain Talent: Commitment. In the Drive strand of the Brain Talent report, Commitment is on the practical side of the spectrum. 
More information about Brain Talents →

Tenacity means sticking to something and seeing it through, putting in the work. It doesn’t matter what the “it” is. It could be daily exercise, caring for a loved one during a hard time, saving for a car, finishing a certification, raising funds for charity – anything you want to change, to create, to make happen and you get it done.

Is it the same as stubbornness? Nope. Tenacious people are able to adapt their position to get the job done, requiring some amount of flow and flexibility. When you are stubborn and fixed in your position, you can miss out on opportunities. Perhaps tenacity is a more nuanced and grown up version of stubbornness– you are locked in on your goal but you are on a softer path to get there.

What do you think about Tenacity? How have you seen it in action?

? RESEARCH SAYS: Rethinking “Do what I say not what I do”

Parents’ influence on their children can be understood from three aspects:
1. Parenting goal (the goals/values parents promote)
2. Parenting style (“operating system” within the family)
3. Parent’s practice (behaviors that parents do)
*Note if you are an educator– you can replace “educator” anywhere you see “parent” in this piece.

As an example:

Parent’s goal- Peaceful home (this is what they say they really want)

Parent’s style- Negotiation and communication (this is how we interact with the family)

Parent’s behavior- Confrontational and argumentative (this is what the child sees us do)

We often believe that our goals and words shape our children, but the actions they observe us doing have a massive impact.

Research supports this; three examples:
With financial management– what parents said had zero impact but their financial role modeling was significant.

When parents talk to adolescents about alcohol use, their own drinking behavior is what gets noticed.

Problematic social media use by parents impacts adolescents’ social media levels and is not mitigated by parental controls.

We spend a lot of time researching the “best practices” for parenting to improve the climate in our homes, always seeking the new idea to make parenting easier. But perhaps we should look inside ourselves for some of that insight. Are we modeling the values we want to see in our children? Are we honestly behaving coherently with the parenting style and goals that we say we believe?

Kids are quick to spot inauthentic behavior, they have a heightened sense for catching out adults making poor choices. While we don’t need to be perfect, let’s at least hold ourselves to the same standards we expect our children to conduct themselves.

? TRY IT YOURSELF: 4 Tips for Tenacity

Have a team– surround yourself with people who are supportive AND challenging. We don’t make progress if everyone agrees with us all the time. Look for sparring partners who will ask you the hard questions so you are prepared for the challenges to come. But don’t go it alone– we all need a support system and you are not alone on the uphill path to your goals.

Grow everyday– challenge yourself to learn something, try something, taste something, take the stairs. When we put ourselves in a growth mode, we are building hard working habits. But don’t forget to capture your growth! Journaling regularly is a best neuroscience practice to help lock in our learning. Its important to record successes but more importantly to record failures. Mistakes are evidence of our growth!

Flex and pivot–not everything you do will work. When you have a flex and pivot mindset, your errors can help inform your next step. Expecting changes along the way makes the road bumps less disappointing. Remember you are building skills even when you are adapting.

Light your fire– What excites you? What gets you up in the morning? What keeps you going after everyone else has quit? If you don’t already know your Noble Goal <link> pay attention to what is the impact you want to make in the world? Are your smaller actions and priorities in alignment with your Noble Goal?

? MARK YOUR CALENDAR: Events for Educators – will you join us?

Nov 14 – Antioch University Continuing Education webinar: Free Resources to Introduce SEL from POP-UP Festival in Partnership with UNICEF

Nov 20 – World Children’s Day- be sure to get on Social Media and share your celebration (use POP-UP Festival with your kids!) with our hashtags: #eqpopup #worldchildrensday #kidstakeover

Thank you!

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