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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHI 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.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
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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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Is it ‘a drag’ that passions don’t come to us all at once, as epiphanies, without the need to actively develop them?
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Grit, in a word, is stamina. But it’s not just stamina in your effort.
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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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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 define talent as the rate at which you get better at something when you try. To be very talented means you get better faster and more easily than other people or other things that you try.
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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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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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The words that we use I think are symbolic of the values that we hold.
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I think the questions on the grit scale about not letting setbacks disappoint you, finishing what you begin, doing things with focus, I think that those are things I would aspire to or hope for for all our children.
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Many things matter other than our measured intelligence, so let’s get to work on them.
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Grit may carry risk because it’s about putting all your eggs in one basket, to some extent.
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I would be surprised if my girls ended up as women without grit. I really would.
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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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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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH






