A culture exists when a group of people agrees on how to do things and why. The sharper the difference between this group and the rest of the world, the stronger the bonds.
To be grittier, find a gritty culture and join it. You will conform to the group and adopt their gritty habits. When it’s socially expected to wake up at 4 AM to practice, it becomes what you do.
The causation is bidirectional between the people and the culture. People need to be gritty to join a culture that selects for grit (like a top sports team). Then, because gritty people will reinforce each other, the culture gets grittier, which raises the bar for people who join. This is the corresponsive principle at work.
Eventually, the values of the culture we belong to become part of our identity. When values like grit become part of our identity, decisions depending on those values become habit and automatic.
If it’s part of your identity to finish what you complete, you don’t constantly stop and ask, "what is the cost-benefit tradeoff of continuing? What are the risks?" You ask: "Who am I? What is this situation? What does someone like me do in a situation like this?" Often grit will take you past the point when it’s seemingly rational to give up – if grit is part of your identity, persevering and keeping passion is just something you do.
Thus, think of yourself as someone who can overcome adversity, as someone who can get the better of bad fortune by proving you can stand worse. You will tend to act in a way that is consistent with your self-belief.
Repeat the value of grit repeatedly in your communication. Make it a tagline you can refer to easily, and that people will repeat to each other and themselves.
Give the Grit Scale questionnaire to people and let them see their results.
Give a test of grit (like the treadmill test) and make the results publicly known.
Test your teammates on memorizing your cultural values and articulating what it means.
Lead by example. Built an improvement plan for someone who is struggling, and execute it alongside them. They will soon bootstrap themselves to improve independently.
Recruit people who are demonstrably grittier than the average in your team.
Praise behavior that is gritty.
Be a supportive and demanding mentor. Think about how you would treat your own children.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." – Teddy Roosevelt
"If you create a vision for yourself and stick with it, you can make amazing things happen in your life. My experience is that once you have done the work to create the clear vision, it is the discipline and effort to maintain that vision that can make it all come true. The two go hand in hand. The moment you’ve created that vision, you’re on your way, but it’s the diligence with which you stick to that vision that allows you to get there. Getting that across to players is a constant occupation." – Pete Carroll, Seattle Seahawks coach