Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

by Angela Duckworth

the most dazzling human achievements are, in fact, the aggregate of countless individual elements, each of which is, in a sense, ordinary.

The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is: I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be outworked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me. You might be all of those things. You got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there’s two things: You’re getting off first, or I’m going to die.36 It’s really that simple.

Many of us, it seems, quit what we start far too early and far too often. Even more than the effort a gritty person puts in on a single day, what matters is that they wake up the next day, and the next, ready to get on that treadmill and keep going.

If I have the math approximately right, then someone twice as talented but half as hardworking as another person might reach the same level of skill but still produce dramatically less over time.

“Right, it’s doing what you love, but not just falling in love—staying in love.”

Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.

Do things better than they have ever been done before.9

Grit is about holding the same top-level goal for a very long time. Furthermore, this “life philosophy,” as Pete Carroll might put it, is so interesting and important that it organizes a great deal of your waking activity. In very gritty people, most mid-level and low-level goals are, in some way or another, related to that ultimate goal. In contrast, a lack of grit can come from having less coherent goal structures.

passion for your work is a little bit of discovery, followed by a lot of development, and then a lifetime of deepening.

“The more I know, the less I understand.” Sir John Templeton,

You aren’t improving because you’re not doing deliberate practice.”

experts do it all over again, and again, and again. Until they have finally mastered what they set out to do. Until what was a struggle before is now fluent and flawless. Until conscious incompetence becomes unconscious competence.

“People often assume that you have to have great hands to become a surgeon, but it’s not true.” What’s most important, Gawande said, is “practicing this one difficult thing day and night for years on end.”19

The roots of knowledge are bitter, but its fruits are sweet.

In other words, deliberate practice is for preparation, and flow is for performance.

Each of the basic requirements of deliberate practice is unremarkable:47 A clearly defined stretch goal Full concentration and effort Immediate and informative feedback Repetition with reflection and refinement