This Astronaut was rejected by NASA thrice. Listed below are his secrets and techniques to perseverance 

He instantly made his mother flip his elephant faculty play costume into an astronaut for Halloween.

“Neil Armstrong was it,” he tells Fortune. “The space program hit me at a very young age. I’ve always felt it was the most important thing going on in the world.” 

Greater than twenty years after watching the primary man on the moon—and receiving three rejections from NASA—Massimino served as an astronaut from 1996 till 2014, together with over the past mission to the Hubble House Telescope. His crew set data for house strolling instances, and he gained a Nobel Prize in physics for locating darkish vitality. He’s additionally performed himself on the sitcom The Huge Bang Concept. 

In some ways, Massimino is an unlikely success story, however he’s additionally a grasp class in grit, which he credit for serving to him beat the percentages. Now, he has a message for others about perseverance. “The one thing I felt like I could control was how hard I tried and not giving up,” he says.

“You can control the effort, not the outcome,” a buddy as soon as reminded him.

Grit is the proper mixture of ardour and perseverance, finally main folks to remain dedicated to long-term or lofty objectives, as defined by psychologist and speaker Angela Duckworth who wrote Grit. As a researcher of the phenomenon, she discovered grit is a powerful predictor of efficiency, as in comparison with different widespread attributes of success like consistency. Beyond profession success, grit additionally improved well-being, and was discovered to enhance folks’s sense of life satisfaction, engagement, and happiness, and was even related to decreasing ranges of melancholy. 

NASA

Only a dream 

As a baby fascinated by the undiscovered elements of the universe, Massimino adopted the most recent in house missions and digested movies and books on astronauts like The Proper Stuff, the place he noticed the facility of detail-oriented teamwork between the mission management middle and house. He dreamt of being on the crew. However his want caught up with him when he realized he lacked the best skillset to make it as an astronaut: He was afraid of heights and couldn’t swim. “I could never do what they do,” he says. “I thought I would never fit in.”

Essentially the most detrimental setback was his poor eyesight. “That dream, the idea of following my heroes into orbit, had already lived and died a thousand times in my imagination,” he writes in a brand new guide Moonshot, about his profession out and in of house. 

Rejection on high of rejection 

Given all of Massimino’s limitations to qualify and excel as an astronaut, he labored on paving the way in which for a special profession and landed a desk job at IBM. Nevertheless, when the Challenger exploded, Massimino determined he wouldn’t wait any longer to pursue his ardour. 

NASA’s elite program of astronauts introduces a brand new class each couple of years. If you happen to don’t make it, you gained’t be thought-about once more till the subsequent spherical. Massimino first utilized to this system in 1989. Eight months later, he acquired his rejection letter within the mail. Unsurprised, he started pursuing house analysis and training, working towards his PhD in engineering at MIT. He utilized once more two years later for the 1992 astronaut class. He obtained rejected once more however started working within the trade as a analysis engineer at McDonell Douglas Aerospace in Houston, Texas. Years later, for the category of 1995, Massimino’s software obtained flagged. The interview course of was as intensive as one would think about, with IQ assessments, medical examinations, and quite a few lab assessments. 

Massimino was medically disqualified for one thing he couldn’t change—not having 20/20 imaginative and prescient. He didn’t cease there. After intensive analysis, he pursued imaginative and prescient coaching for almost a 12 months, having taken recommendation from others within the house science subject, serving to his eyes focus extra clearly on objects in entrance of him. 

Submitting his fourth software to NASA like a shot in the dead of night with a observe from his eye physician on his enhancements, Massimino obtained a name. They’d let him retake his eye take a look at. He handed. 

“Making a decision to give up on my dream after coming so close was unthinkable,” he writes in his guide. 

The way to have grit 

You would have a look at Massimino’s first three purposes and conclude he failed. However failure shouldn’t be one thing Massimino writes a lot about in his guide. He additionally says he wasn’t beneath an phantasm, considering it will all work out completely on the primary strive. He as an alternative carried a perception that if he saved making an attempt, even when he didn’t achieve the way in which he supposed, it will be okay.

“I felt like if I do these things and try my hardest, it would lead me to a good outcome anyway,” he says.

It’s extra about contentment together with your present circumstances whereas not giving up on the possibility for extra and your passions, irrespective of the obstacles. 

“One in a million is not zero,” he tells Fortune. “I knew that if I gave up, I would always wonder what would have happened.” To not say that his publish as a professor—the place he was earlier than and after becoming a member of NASA—was a comfort prize. He was completely happy in his job however saved making use of as if he had been the six-year-old watching Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk once more. Throughout a decade of rejections, he pursued many fulfilling avenues round house journey and engineering whereas beginning a household. However Massimino says it took checking in with himself and being trustworthy concerning the untapped potential to go the additional mile and take an opportunity. 

“I think it’s trying to be honest with yourself about what really matters to you, and trying to try to give yourself a chance to get there,” he says. “For me, it was just the passion of wanting to do it.” 

Massimino additionally realized, particularly in the course of the interview course of the place he met completed astronauts and scientists, that profitable persons are not the superheroes he as soon as idolized. 

“I found that the people at the top of their profession, whatever that means, were also some of the nicest people. Good people are rewarded for being good people. You shouldn’t mistake kindness for weakness,” he says. “I started realizing that maybe it wasn’t as crazy. Maybe I didn’t have the same skill set or experiences as some of the others, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t fit in.” 

Whereas Massimino understands the uncontrollable limitations holding folks from pursuing the profession of their goals, his success was much less about attending to house and extra about trusting himself and never viewing rejection as a private failure. 

“I would have never stopped trying,” he says. “To do this day, I would be submitting an application.”