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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI 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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHYou 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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHSome people prefer a world where we’re all equally talented in everything. Whether you prefer that world or not, I don’t think that world exists.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHThere 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?
ANGELA DUCKWORTHSo 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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHIf 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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHIt’s a very good thing to teach kids to finish what they started in the sense of fulfilling their commitments.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHThere’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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI 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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI 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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI was a good novice teacher, but I did the things that were obvious.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHChildhood is generally far too early to know what we want to be when we grow up.
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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHThe focus on just thinking about standardized test scores as being synonymous with achievement for teenagers is ridiculous, right?
ANGELA DUCKWORTHIf 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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI 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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH