There are no shortcuts to true excellence.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHMaybe. But the reality is that our early interests are fragile, vaguely defined, and in need of energetic, years-long cultivation and refinement.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
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Childhood is generally far too early to know what we want to be when we grow up.
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Grittier students are more likely to earn their diplomas; grittier teachers are more effective in the classroom.
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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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Boredom is a very self-conscious emotion by definition. Interest is not. So you can actually be completely absorbed in something and, at certain points in your development, not even realize that you’re into it.
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Drive is something that can be encouraged by a wonderful teacher, by a terrific classroom environment, by an awesome soccer team that you are on, and it can be squashed as well.
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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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Every day, parents and teachers ask me, ‘How do I build grit in kids? What do I do to teach kids a solid work ethic? How do I keep them motivated for the long run?’ The honest answer is, I don’t know.
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Gritty people train at the edge of their comfort zone. They zero in on one narrow aspect of their performance and set a stretch goal to improve it.
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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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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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I stayed for lunch for extra tutoring, gave kids my cell phone, and was available. In my first year of teaching,
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I ended up doubling the math time that a conventional school would have. But I don’t think any of these things were path-breaking or unusual.
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There’s something about taking the path of least resistance that makes a lot of sense. But at the same time, we have to figure out which things in life are worth struggling through.
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Some of the things we do are great, but they often have these iterations that are not great. We screw up sometimes. We get rejected.
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I worked hard when I was a consultant. I worked hard when I was in graduate school looking at neuroscience.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH






