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 DUCKWORTHSo 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.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
-
-
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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
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 DUCKWORTH -
Is it ‘a drag’ that passions don’t come to us all at once, as epiphanies, without the need to actively develop them?
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
If you’re never able to tolerate a little bit of pain and discomfort, you’ll never get better.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Very few people can keep going their whole life doing something and feel like it’s merely personally fascinating.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
I now have Grit Scale scores from thousands of American adults. My data provide a snapshot of grit across adulthood.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
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 -
I will say that if my wildest dreams come true, I will, like, wake up one day, and I will be Carol Dweck, right? Because she is like everything I want to be.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
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 -
Most teachers, when surveyed, say that it is part of their job to help students develop things like grit. This is especially true at the elementary and middle school levels. They feel it’s part of their vocation to teach other things that are not formally academic content.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Why do some people try, try again, and why do some people not? That’s what I’m after.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
There’s this really awesome theory of human motivation – that human beings all want three things. One is to be competent, one is to belong, and one is be free, as in to have choice: to not be told what to do but to choose what to do.
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 -
Really, what matters in the long run is sticking with things and working daily to get better at them.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
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 DUCKWORTH -
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 -
I think the very idea of character, of developing not just grit, but empathy and curiosity, emotional intelligence.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
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 -
Nobody gets to be good at something without effort, no matter what your aptitude is.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Grittier students are more likely to earn their diplomas; grittier teachers are more effective in the classroom.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Everybody knows that effort matters. What was revelatory to me was how much it mattered.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
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.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Drive is something that can be encouraged by a wonderful teacher, by a terrific classroom environment, by an awesome soccer team that you are on, and it can be squashed as well.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Psychologists call this the maturity principle. My own life experience fits this principle to a T.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Most people who are really, enduringly interested in something eventually find that it’s important, too – and important to other people.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH