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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI know a lot of CEOs who are looking for three- to four-year varsity athletes – not necessarily because these people are going to be doing pushups or spiking volleyballs in the workplace, but because they’re looking for that continuity, that person who was gritty about something.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
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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.
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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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Grit, in a word, is stamina. But it’s not just stamina in your effort.
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As our knees and hips and eyesight deteriorate, we become more dependable, less impulsive, kinder, and less moody.
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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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If you’re never able to tolerate a little bit of pain and discomfort, you’ll never get better.
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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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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’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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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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When people tell me I can’t do something, I have a visceral reflex to say, ‘Yes, I can.’
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I’m not a policy oriented person. I’m constrained to what I study. But educational policy has not yet taken adequate note of the whole child. Kids are not just their IQ or standardized test scores. It matters whether or not they show up, how hard they work.
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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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Nobody gets to be good at something without effort, no matter what your aptitude is.
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People who are really gritty – they’re still interested.
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