Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

by Angela Duckworth

the experience of deliberate practice can be extremely positive—not just in the long-term but in the moment.

And, too, top performers point out that the alternative to deliberate practice—mindlessly “going through the motions” without improvement—can be its own form of suffering.

Compared to their less passionate, less persevering competitors, grittier spellers not only logged more hours of deliberate practice, they rated it as both more enjoyable and more effortful.

Grittier kids reported working harder than other kids when doing deliberate practice but, at the same time, said they enjoyed it more than other kids, too.

One possibility is that grittier kids spend more time doing deliberate practice, and that, over the years, they develop a taste for hard work as they experience the rewards of their ...

Katie willingly does more deliberate practice than anyone he’s ever met. “We’ll try a drill that she’s horrible at—something where she’ll start off in the poorest third of the group doing it. Then I’ll catch her sneaking practice time to get better at it, so within some period of time, she’s one of the best in the group. Some other swimmers, well, they try and they fail at it, and I have to cajole and beg them to try it again.”

“No, the only time I could say that I was in flow was when I wasn’t being challenged.”

“Some of my most rewarding studying,” she told me, “was on my own, forcing myself to break down a big task into multiple parts and getting it done.”

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

It’s not hours of brute-force exhaustion you’re after, he told them. It’s high-quality, thoughtful training goals pursued, just as Ericsson’s research has shown, for just a few hours a day, tops.

We told them that trying to do things they can’t yet do, failing, and learning what they need to do differently is exactly the way experts practice.

We helped them understand that feelings of frustration aren’t necessarily a sign they’re on the wrong track. On the contrary, we told them that wishing they did things better is extremely common during learning.

students who learned about deliberate practice were more likely to recommend “focus on your weaknesses” and “concentrate one hundred percent.”

Which leads to my second suggestion for getting the most out of deliberate practice: Make it a habit.

By this I mean, figure out when and where you’re most comfortable doing deliberate practice.

Once you’ve made your selection, do deliberate practice then ...

Because routines are a godsend when it comes to doin...

when you have a habit of practicing at the same time and in the same place every day, you hardly have to think ab...

“What do these creators have in common?” you’ll find the answer right in the title: daily rituals.

They follow routines. They’re creatures of habit.

Eventually, if you keep practicing in the same time and place, what once took conscious thought to initiate becomes automatic.

When it’s eight in the morning and I’m in my home office, I will reread yesterday’s draft. This habit didn’t make the writing easier, per se, but it sure made it easier to get started.

“Deliberate practice can feel wonderful,” Terry told me. “If you try, you can learn to embrace challenge rather than fear it. You can do all the things you’re supposed to do during deliberate practice—a clear goal, feedback, all of it—and still feel great while you’re doing it.

“It’s all about in-the-moment self-awareness without judgment,”

relieving yourself of the judgment that gets in the way of enjo...

“Between coaches and parents and friends and the media, they’ve learned that failing is bad, so they protect themselves and won’t stick their neck out and give their best effort.”

“Shame doesn’t help you fix anything,”

model emotion-free mistake making.

I do think you can try saying to yourself, and to others, “That was hard! It was great!”

Interest is one source of passion. Purpose—the intention to contribute to the well-being of others—is another. The mature passions of gritty people depend on both.

But most people first become attracted to things they enjoy and only later appreciate how these personal interests might also benefit others.

the more common sequence is to start out with a relatively self-oriented interest, then learn self-disciplined practice, and, finally, integrate that work with an other-centered purpose.

At its core, the idea of purpose is the idea that what we do matters to people other than ourselves.

“I’m not a brain surgeon, I’m not curing cancer. But in this one small way, I think I’m going to make the world better. I wake up every morning with a sense of purpose.”

As you can see, gritty people aren’t monks, nor are they hedonists. In terms of pleasure-seeking, they’re just like anyone else; pleasure is moderately important no matter how gritty you are.

In sharp contrast, you can see that grittier people are dramatically more motivated than others to seek a meaningful, other-centered life.

Higher scores on purpose correlate with higher scores ...

most gritty people see their ultimate aims as deeply connected to the world beyond themselves.

My claim here is that, for most people, purpose is a tremendously powerful source of motivation.

So, while interest is crucial to sustaining passion over the long-term, so, too, is the desire to connect with and help others.

Three bricklayers are asked: “What are you doing?” The first says, “I am laying bricks.” The second says, “I am building a church.” And the third says, “I am building the house of God.” The first bricklayer has a job. The second has a career. The third has a calling.

How you see your work is more important than your job title.

“A calling is not some fully formed thing that you find,” she tells advice seekers. “It’s much more dynamic.

In other words, a bricklayer who one day says, “I am laying bricks” might at some point become the bricklayer who recognizes “I am building the house of God.”

So, interest was the seed of his passion.

bolt or rivet and realize that some fellow had put that in decades ago, and here it was, still in the same place, still making the trains run, still helping people to get where they needed to be.

“I began to feel like I was making a contribution to society,” he told me. “I understood I was responsible for moving people every single day.

Only when interest and purpose melded did he feel like he was doing what he’d been put on this planet to do.

I was twenty-one when I first experienced the power of a purposeful top-level goal.

Philip and I had nothing and, yet, we had exactly what we needed. We had purpose.