When people tell me I can’t do something, I have a visceral reflex to say, ‘Yes, I can.’
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI would be surprised if my girls ended up as women without grit. I really would.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
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So 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.
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Being gritty doesn’t mean not showing pain or pretending everything is O.K. In fact, when you look at healthy and successful and giving people, they are extraordinarily meta-cognitive. They’re able to say things like, ‘Dude, I totally lost my temper this morning.’ That ability to reflect on yourself is signature to grit.
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Everybody knows that effort matters. What was revelatory to me was how much it mattered.
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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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Nobody gets to be good at something without effort, no matter what your aptitude is.
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Many things matter other than our measured intelligence, so let’s get to work on them.
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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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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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Some of the things we do are great, but they often have these iterations that are not great. We screw up sometimes. We get rejected.
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Grit and self-control are related, but they’re not the same thing.
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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.
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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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Really, what matters in the long run is sticking with things and working daily to get better at them.
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There are going to be peaks and valleys. You don’t want to let kids quit during a valley.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH






