Grittier soldiers are more likely to complete their training, and grittier salespeople are more likely to keep their jobs. The more challenging the domain, the more grit seems to matter.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHNobody gets to be good at something without effort, no matter what your aptitude is.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
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The most important thing parents can do, although it’s not the only thing they should do, is model the behavior they want from their kids.
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When people think of the word ‘drive,’ they often think you have it or you don’t, and that’s where we’re wrong.
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Longitudinal studies following thousands of people across time have shown that most people only begin to gravitate toward certain vocational interests, and away from others, around middle school.
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Being gritty doesn’t mean not showing pain or pretending everything is O.K. In fact, when you look at healthy and successful and giving people, they are extraordinarily meta-cognitive. They’re able to say things like, ‘Dude, I totally lost my temper this morning.’ That ability to reflect on yourself is signature to grit.
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What we reliably find is that people’s perseverance scores are actually higher than their passion scores, and I think it really does get to the fact that working hard is hard, but maybe finding your passion is even more difficult.
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So when my daughter told me on the second track meet that she was done with it because she discovered she didn’t like competing, I made her finish the season.
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And I’ve discovered a strikingly consistent pattern: grit and age go hand in hand. Sixty-somethings tend to be grittier, on average, than fifty-somethings, who are in turn grittier than forty-somethings, and so on.
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There haven’t been genetic studies on grit, but we often think that challenge is inherited but grit is learned. That’s not what science says. Science says grit comes from both nature and nurture.
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The parenting style that is good for grit is also the parenting style good for most other things: Be really, really demanding, and be very, very supportive.
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You cannot will yourself to be interested in something you’re not interested in. But you can actively discover and deepen your interest.
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Psychologists call this the maturity principle. My own life experience fits this principle to a T.
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My dad was not super-intentional in his parenting. He was very self-absorbed. I won’t say mean or selfish per se, but very self-absorbed. I think he was just thinking out loud.
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There are no shortcuts to true excellence.
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Grit and self-control are related, but they’re not the same thing.
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Many things matter other than our measured intelligence, so let’s get to work on them.
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