As our knees and hips and eyesight deteriorate, we become more dependable, less impulsive, kinder, and less moody.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHWhen 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.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
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Most people who are really, enduringly interested in something eventually find that it’s important, too – and important to other people.
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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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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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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.
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Grit, in a word, is stamina. But it’s not just stamina in your effort.
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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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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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Maybe. But the reality is that our early interests are fragile, vaguely defined, and in need of energetic, years-long cultivation and refinement.
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I now have Grit Scale scores from thousands of American adults. My data provide a snapshot of grit across adulthood.
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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.
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I believe kids should choose what they want to do, because it’s their life, but they have to choose something, and they can’t quit in the middle unless there’s a really good reason.
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When people think of the word ‘drive,’ they often think you have it or you don’t, and that’s where we’re wrong.
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You cannot will yourself to be interested in something you’re not interested in. But you can actively discover and deepen your interest.
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There are no shortcuts to true excellence.
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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.
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