When I was 27 years old, I left a very demanding job in management consulting for a job that was even more demanding: teaching. I went to teach seventh graders math in the New York City public schools.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHGritty 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.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
-
-
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 -
When people think of the word ‘drive,’ they often think you have it or you don’t, and that’s where we’re wrong.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Really, what matters in the long run is sticking with things and working daily to get better at them.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
I don’t think that every child in America is going to necessarily aspire to, you know, a four-year degree from a liberal arts college or a certain kind of life. I think that people should learn to be excellent in the thing that they choose to do.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
People who are really gritty – they’re still interested.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
I think the very idea of character, of developing not just grit, but empathy and curiosity, emotional intelligence.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
I 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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Grit, in a word, is stamina. But it’s not just stamina in your effort.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Childhood is generally far too early to know what we want to be when we grow up.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
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 -
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 -
Substituting nuance for novelty is what experts do, and that is why they are never bored.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH