Maybe. But the reality is that our early interests are fragile, vaguely defined, and in need of energetic, years-long cultivation and refinement.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHThe 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.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
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Many things matter other than our measured intelligence, so let’s get to work on them.
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Most people who are really, enduringly interested in something eventually find that it’s important, too – and important to other people.
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Nobody gets to be good at something without effort, no matter what your aptitude is.
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If the quality and quantity of continuous effort toward goals matters as much as I think it does, we may actually get more productive, not less, as we get older – even if we can’t pull all-nighters like we used to.
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I will say that if my wildest dreams come true, I will, like, wake up one day, and I will be Carol Dweck, right? Because she is like everything I want to be.
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Substituting nuance for novelty is what experts do, and that is why they are never bored.
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To me, the most shocking thing about grit is how little we know, how little science knows, about building it.
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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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You know, the things that I want my own daughters to develop – the idea that we’re going to get there through rewards and punishments seems completely at odds with the idea of character itself.
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Very few people can keep going their whole life doing something and feel like it’s merely personally fascinating.
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I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my genes because I can’t do anything about them.
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Psychologists call this the maturity principle. My own life experience fits this principle to a T.
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Everybody knows that effort matters. What was revelatory to me was how much it mattered.
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I worked hard as a teacher. But those are completely different career paths. And the lack of direction is why I didn’t get far enough in any of those things.
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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.
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If you’re never able to tolerate a little bit of pain and discomfort, you’ll never get better.
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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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At various points, in big ways and small, we get knocked down. If we stay down, grit loses. If we get up, grit prevails.
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Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
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The focus on just thinking about standardized test scores as being synonymous with achievement for teenagers is ridiculous, right?
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I think it’s very important to send the message that, while parents are needed to remind you to practice and occasionally force you to finish things… they also need to learn to respect you. You as an individual, ultimately, are the captain of where you’re going.
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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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I define talent as the rate at which you get better at something when you try. To be very talented means you get better faster and more easily than other people or other things that you try.
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I’m not a policy oriented person. I’m constrained to what I study. But educational policy has not yet taken adequate note of the whole child. Kids are not just their IQ or standardized test scores. It matters whether or not they show up, how hard they work.
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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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I worked hard when I was a consultant. I worked hard when I was in graduate school looking at neuroscience.
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