Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

by Angela Duckworth

“the human individual lives usually far within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use. He energizes below his maximum, and he behaves below his optimum.”

why do we assume that it is our talent, rather than our effort, that will decide where we end up in the very long run?

as much as talent counts, effort counts twice.

when we can’t easily see how experience and training got someone to a level of excellence that is so clearly beyond the norm, we default to labeling that person a “natural.”

Greatness is many, many individual feats, and each of them is doable.”

Talent is how quickly your skills improve when you invest effort. Achievement is what happens when you take your acquired skills and use them.

I came to appreciate that in doing something over and over again, something that was never natural becomes almost second nature.

running hard was not just a function of aerobic capacity and muscle strength but also the extent to which “a subject is willing to push himself or has a tendency to quit before the punishment becomes too severe.”

Staying on the treadmill is one thing, and I do think it’s related to staying true to our commitments even when we’re not comfortable. But getting back on the treadmill the next day, eager to try again, is in my view even more reflective of grit.

Grit is about holding the same top-level goal for a very long time.

On any long journey, detours are to be expected.

What ripens passion is the conviction that your work matters.

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

overbearing parents and teachers erode intrinsic motivation.

‘It’s not important that I understand everything. It’s important that I listen.’ ”

Whatever your age, over time your role as a learner will become a more active and informed one. Over a period of years, your knowledge and expertise will grow, and along with it your confidence and curiosity to know more.

Then 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.

Even the most complex and creative of human abilities can be broken down into its component skills, each of which can be practiced, practiced, practiced.

world-class performers at the peak of their careers can only handle a maximum of one hour of deliberate practice before needing a break, and in total, can only do about three to five hours of deliberate practice per day.

Nobody wants to show you the hours and hours of becoming. They’d rather show the highlight of what they’ve become.

when you have a habit of practicing at the same time and in the same place every day, you hardly have to think about getting started. You just do.

Sometimes, he’d look at a 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.

Whatever your age, it’s never too early or late to begin cultivating a sense of purpose.

I have a feeling tomorrow will be better is different from I resolve to make tomorrow better. The hope that gritty people have has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with getting up again.

‘Just keep working hard and learning, and it will all work out.’ ”

It sometimes feels like we have nothing left to give, and yet, in those dark and desperate moments, we find that if we just keep putting one foot in front of the other, there is a way to accomplish what all reason seems to argue against.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.