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At various points, in big ways and small, we get knocked down. If we stay down, grit loses. If we get up, grit prevails.

Angela Duckworth

I worked hard when I was a consultant. I worked hard when I was in graduate school looking at neuroscience.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Consultant Gratitude Hard Harder Look Neuroscience School Work Worker
Longitudinal studies following thousands of people across time have shown that most people only begin to gravitate toward certain vocational interests, and away from others, around middle school.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Across Follow Longitudinal Middle People Thousand School Shown Study Time
Many, many individuals will report starting to form their lifelong interests around adolescence. Why that is, researchers don’t fully know. But if you can take a trip down memory lane and see what interested you, that’s at least a clue as to where your interest may begin to develop.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Adolescence Around Individual Interest Lifelong Many Report Start
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
Boredom is a very self-conscious emotion by definition. Interest is not. So you can actually be completely absorbed in something and, at certain points in your development, not even realize that you’re into it.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Boredom Conscious Definition Emotion Interest Self
It’s also stamina in your direction, stamina in your interests. If you are working on different things but all of them very hard, you’re not really going to get anywhere. You’ll never become an expert.
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Anyone Different Expert Hard Interest Stamina Them Thing Work
If the quality and quantity of continuous effort toward goals matters as much as I think it does, we may actually get more productive, not less, as we get older – even if we can’t pull all-nighters like we used to.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Continue Goal Matter Much Quality Quantity Think Towards
It’s a very good thing to teach kids to finish what they started in the sense of fulfilling their commitments.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

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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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Grit, in a word, is stamina. But it’s not just stamina in your effort.
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I was a good novice teacher, but I did the things that were obvious.
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Good Novice Obvious Teacher Thing
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

Athlete CEO Four Know Look People Pushup So Spiking Three Varsity Volleyball Year
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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Competing Daughter Discover Made Season Second Track Was
Grit and self-control are related, but they’re not the same thing.
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Control Grit Relate Same Self Thing
There is a fluency and an ease with which true mastery and expertise always expresses itself, whether it be in writing, whether it be in a mathematical proof, whether it be in a dance that you see on stage, really in every domain. But I think the question is, you know, where does that fluency and mastery come from?
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Always Ease Expertise Expresses Fluency Itself Mastery Mathematics Proof True White
Everybody knows that effort matters. What was revelatory to me was how much it mattered.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Effort Everybody Matter Mattered Much Revelator

At various points, in big ways and small, we get knocked down. If we stay down, grit loses. If we get up, grit prevails.

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At various points, in big ways and small, we get knocked down. If we stay down, grit loses. If we get up, grit prevails.

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Popular Authors

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