Grit has only recently become a popular topic of study in the workplace, academia, and self-help. In the workplace, grit is discussed as a motivational factor. In academia, it’s discussed as a generator of perseverance and self-efficacy. Grit in the area of the self-help is viewed as a developer of consistency. In truth, much of what is being discussed about grit concerns the positive consequences, while the negative consequences are often overlooked. Even positive traits can come with negative side effects.

According to a journal titled When the Going Gets Tough: Grit Predicts Costly Perseverance, the underlying motivation of grit is fear. In the journal, Gale Lucas and her colleagues explain that grit is a facet of courage. They also point out that most  gritty people have a fear of failing. Now, to connect the two, the fear of failing motivates gritty people to keep going. Grit seems to be the triggered response to the fear behind the challenges that one faces. This can be courageous in certain instances but harmful in others. Fear is often a self-protection response. When someone chooses to push past fear and continue on the same path, they can come to harm. 

For most people, giving up and moving on when something gets tough is a normal reaction. However, a downside for grittier people is that even when faced with an impossible task, they typically push through. In the study, Lucas et al gave college students anagrams that progressively got harder. They found that people with a lot of grit spent more time attempting to solve the difficult anagrams instead of moving on in order to complete more of them. Similar results were discovered in other studies they conducted. When individuals with more grit face an impossible task, they persist even when things are not going well.

So, to put things plainly, people with more grit are not typically the type to give up easily. They take more risks, and they are generally found to have more optimism than their counterparts when facing tasks/challenges they seek to overcome. These are really good qualities to have, but too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. There are times when having too much grit costs more than giving up. This can be seen in a game where participants who quit earned a dollar, those who continued and won got two dollars, and those who lost won nothing at all. In the NPR podcast interview, psychologist Gale Lucas spoke about the inability to let go of her toxic marriage. Lucas held on to her marriage at the expense of her peace. This example of her marriage is a prime example of the level of commitment most highly gritty individuals have in various areas of their lives and why having too much grit can have negative consequences. Everything in life needs balance, and grit seems to be no exception to that rule.

Medical studies have also found that gritty people have a tendency to avoid asking for help. The grit facet of consistency of interests can also cause them to resist adopting new behavior norms such as  seeking help. This is especially true in military service people, who are a large representational population of grit. Their value of self-reliance can also cause them to see mental health counseling as “weak”. The grit these servicemen had to develop to handle their duties ends up hurting them in the long run. Grit in mediation has many positive outcomes and balance is always important to maintain.