“Most teachers, when surveyed, say that it is part of their job to help students develop things like grit. This is especially true at the elementary and middle school levels. They feel it’s part of their vocation to teach other things that are not formally academic content.”

If you are a young person who is wanting to develop a passion, you cannot expect anyone else to tell you what that passion would be.

To me, the most shocking thing about grit is how little we know, how little science knows, about building it.

There are so many things that kids care about, where they excel, where they try hard, where they learn important life lessons, that are not picked up by test scores.

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.

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.

There are no shortcuts to true excellence.

I know that instructional time is a zero-sum game, but if we want kids to do well academically, it’s hard to imagine that happening if they don’t have some control over their attention.

Psychologists call this the maturity principle. My own life experience fits this principle to a T.

I believe kids should choose what they want to do, because it’s their life, but they have to choose something, and they can’t quit in the middle unless there’s a really good reason.

During all my undergrad years and in high school, I was involved in tutoring and public service. At Harvard, I spent over 35 hours a week doing service. I was a Big Sister, I worked for the homeless, the elderly; it was the epicenter of my focus.

There’s this really awesome theory of human motivation – that human beings all want three things. One is to be competent, one is to belong, and one is be free, as in to have choice: to not be told what to do but to choose what to do.

When people think of the word ‘drive,’ they often think you have it or you don’t, and that’s where we’re wrong.

I do feel it’s hard to be modest and humble and egoless when people are telling you you are so great and wanting to give you prizes and energy. I’m trying hard not to be an awful, narcissistic human being.

One thing that’s true of gritty people is they love what they do, and they keep loving what they do. So they’re not just in love for a day or a week.

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.

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.

Develop The Grit To be great.

You feel like you and the boats are one, you feel that no obstacle will put up any more resistance than the water does to your oars, you feel that hard work and grit and mental toughness will always win it for you in the end.

We have found a direct correlation between grit and positive emotions, but the fact that I have no evidence that grit is bad for you doesn’t mean it’s not. It’s always a possibility that in the future researchers will discover a downside to grit.

Grit and self-control are related, but they’re not the same thing.

Grit may carry risk because it’s about putting all your eggs in one basket, to some extent.

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.

At various points, in big ways and small, we get knocked down. If we stay down, grit loses. If we get up, grit prevails.

Grit, in a word, is stamina. But it’s not just stamina in your effort.