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I 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 Duckworth

Negative feelings are typical of learning, and you shouldn’t feel like you’re stupid when you’re frustrated doing something. You might say to yourself, ‘I can’t do this,’ but you should say, ‘That’s great.’ That means you really have the potential to learn something there.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Facial Feel Feeling Frustrate Learn Like Negative Something Stupid Typical
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

Adequate Child Constrained Education Orientated Ote Person Policy Study Taken Whole
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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Being Everything Fact Give Gritty Healthy Look Mean OK People Pretend Show Successful
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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Day Do Gritty Love Loving One People Think True Week
Everybody knows that effort matters. What was revelatory to me was how much it mattered.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Effort Everybody Matter Mattered Much Revelator
Psychologists call this the maturity principle. My own life experience fits this principle to a T.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Call Experience Life Maturity Own Principle Pschllogistic
I now have Grit Scale scores from thousands of American adults. My data provide a snapshot of grit across adulthood.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Adult Country Girl Scale Score Thousand
What we reliably find is that people’s perseverance scores are actually higher than their passion scores, and I think it really does get to the fact that working hard is hard, but maybe finding your passion is even more difficult.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Consult Demand Job Management More People Perseverance Reliability Teach
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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Answer Build Day Every Grit Honest Kid Parent Solid Teacher Work
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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Excellent Exhausting Life Quite Say Something Striving Thing Wish
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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Disappoint Finish Focus Girl Let Question Scare Setback Think
My dad was not super-intentional in his parenting. He was very self-absorbed. I won’t say mean or selfish per se, but very self-absorbed. I think he was just thinking out loud.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Absorbed Dad Intention Parenting Self Super
There are no shortcuts to true excellence.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Excellence No Shortcut True
People’s lives really do turn out differently. And it certainly can’t be explained by how intelligent you remember them being when they were sitting next to you in organic chemistry class.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Being Sit Differently Explain Intelligent Live Next Out People Really Remember
One of the challenges of commencement speeches is that you have this older, wiser person who is accomplished talking to young, not-yet-so-wise, not-yet-accomplished adults or, in high school or middle school, even younger.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Accomplish Challenge Commencement Older One Person Speech Talk Wise Wiser Young
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 DUCKWORTH

Comfort Gritty People Train End Zone

I 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.

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I 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.

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