It’s a very good thing to teach kids to finish what they started in the sense of fulfilling their commitments.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHWhen people think of the word ‘drive,’ they often think you have it or you don’t, and that’s where we’re wrong.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
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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.
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One of the challenges of commencement speeches is that you have this older, wiser person who is accomplished talking to young, not-yet-so-wise, not-yet-accomplished adults or, in high school or middle school, even younger.
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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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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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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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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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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.
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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.
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Nobody gets to be good at something without effort, no matter what your aptitude is.
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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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There are going to be peaks and valleys. You don’t want to let kids quit during a valley.
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I didn’t tell my kids, ‘You have to play viola, and you have to play piano.’ They chose these things on their own, and I don’t think we have to give kids every choice, but we do have to give them some choice because that autonomy is crucial for fostering passion.
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It’s also stamina in your direction, stamina in your interests. If you are working on different things but all of them very hard, you’re not really going to get anywhere. You’ll never become an expert.
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Many things matter other than our measured intelligence, so let’s get to work on them.
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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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH






