Most people who are really, enduringly interested in something eventually find that it’s important, too – and important to other people.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHMost people who are really, enduringly interested in something eventually find that it’s important, too – and important to other people.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
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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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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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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.
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I do think that whatever ambition I may have had natively was amplified by my father’s clear valuing of it. I knew that was what my dad really cared about.
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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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Striving is exhausting. Sometimes I do say things like, ‘I wish I were not quite this driven to be excellent.’ It’s not a comfortable life. It’s not relaxed. I’m not relaxed as a person. I mean, I’m not unhappy. But… it’s the opposite of being comfortable.
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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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I now have Grit Scale scores from thousands of American adults. My data provide a snapshot of grit across adulthood.
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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 don’t think that every child in America is going to necessarily aspire to, you know, a four-year degree from a liberal arts college or a certain kind of life. I think that people should learn to be excellent in the thing that they choose to do.
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Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
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Why do some people try, try again, and why do some people not? That’s what I’m after.
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Grit and self-control are related, but they’re not the same thing.
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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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I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my genes because I can’t do anything about them.
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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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There is a fluency and an ease with which true mastery and expertise always expresses itself, whether it be in writing, whether it be in a mathematical proof, whether it be in a dance that you see on stage, really in every domain. But I think the question is, you know, where does that fluency and mastery come from?
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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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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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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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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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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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The focus on just thinking about standardized test scores as being synonymous with achievement for teenagers is ridiculous, right?
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I would be surprised if my girls ended up as women without grit. I really would.
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Everybody knows that effort matters. What was revelatory to me was how much it mattered.
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