“Success is never final; failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.”

<ol><li>Grit is about maintaining the same top-level goal for a very long time.</li><li>GRIT has four psychological assets: (1) interest (2) practice (3) purpose (4) hope.</li><li>Gritty people perform more deliberate practice and experience more flow.</li><li>For paragons of grit, the long days and evenings of toil, the setbacks and disappointments, and struggle, the sacrifice—all this is worth it because, ultimately, their efforts pay dividends to other people.</li><li>Often, the critical gritty-or-not decisions we make are a matter of identity more than anything else.</li></ol>

5 Main Ideas

The concept of GRIT can be explained in terms of perseverance. Only perseverance will lead to high achievement. A high achiever never believes that they will ever reach their goals, they are always striving more, and are the exact opposite of complacent, constantly unsatisfied. But in a weird way, being unsatisfied and constantly chasing more is satisfying to them. Someone with true grit has enduring passion, they push through pain and frustration, giving up is simply not an option for them."A combination of passion and perseverance makes high achievers special. High achievers have grit."

What is GRIT?

“I won’t just have a job; I’ll have a calling. I’ll challenge myself every day. When I get knocked down, I’ll get back up. I may not be the smartest person in the room, but I’ll strive to be the grittiest.”

Society places a huge amount of emphasis on talent, a natural ability. The author questions why talent is always perceived as the hero, and that talent is the only reason we ever have good results.The idea that high achievers have some miraculous skill is more appealing than the fact that we are simply average and don’t put in enough effort. This magical skill that someone might hold means we simply don’t need to consider ourselves in the same league as them, therefore there is no reason to compare ourselves.

Talent & Effort

“Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.”

<blockquote>“If we overestimate talent, we underestimate everything else.”</blockquote>In reality, Duckworth recognizes that exceptional performance is most often the result of countless accumulated acts of practice. She ties the psychology of achievement up in a simple formula:Talent x Effort = SkillSkill x Effort = AchievementIn achievement TALENT matters but EFFORT counts twice.As Duckworth sums it up:<blockquote>“Talent is how quickly your skills improve when you invest effort. Achievement is what happens when you take skills and use them.”</blockquote>

TALENT matters but EFFORT counts twice

Grit isn’t just about working hard. It’s about staying the course and achieving mastery over a long period of time. To do this requires not just the core character, but coordination and purpose.This coordination can be envisioned as goals in a hierarchy. Low-level goals are short-term activities and to-dos, which in turn feed into mid-level goals and finally top-level goals.

Goals & GRIT

1. A gritty person must have INTEREST and PASSION. 2. The second characteristic is the ability to PRACTICE. Someone with grit will dedicate themselves to practicing every day, and always striving to be better than the day before.3. The driver behind passion is having a PURPOSE. Someone with grit will understand their purpose and why they do the things that they do.4. Finally, HOPE. A gritty person must have hope, it’s a critical element of perseverance.

Characteristics of GRIT

Finding this passion is in most cases a process of discovery, followed by a lengthier period of interest development, cultivation, and refinement. What separates the grittiest from the rest is their capacity to stick at interests for the long term identifying nuances that keep them interested and exploring their passion at a deeper level.Seminal research by Anders Ericsson (the 10,000-hour rule) suggests that what separates experts is not just the rate at which they practice at an early stage, but the way in which they practice.

The Power of Passion and Practice

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

We typically follow a progression starting with a relatively self-oriented interest, moving through self-disciplined practice, and finally integrating our work with some other-centered purpose.What supports this purpose-based grit is an underlying optimism which the gritty exhibit, and a willingness to look forward despite confronting failure after failure.Duckworth links this idea to growth or fixed mindset. To move towards a true growth mindset, she recommends practicing optimistic self-talk and updating our beliefs on intelligence and talent.

The Guiding Light of Purpose and Hope

“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 do with luck and everything to do with getting up again.”

"In this must-read book for anyone striving to succeed, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth shows parents, educators, athletes, students, and business people--both seasoned and new--that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a focused persistence called "grit." Why do some people succeed and others fail? Sharing new insights from her landmark research on grit, MacArthur "genius" Angela Duckworth explains why talent is hardly a guarantor of success. Rather, other factors can be even more crucial such as identifying our passions and following through on our commitments. Drawing on her own powerful story as the daughter of a scientist who frequently bemoaned her lack of smarts, Duckworth describes her winding path through teaching, business consulting, and neuroscience, which led to the hypothesis that what really drives success is not "genius" but a special blend of passion and long-term perseverance. As a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Duckworth created her own "character lab" and set out to test her theory. Here, she takes readers into the field to visit teachers working in some of the toughest schools, cadets struggling through their first days at West Point, and young finalists in the National Spelling Bee. She also mines fascinating insights from history and shows what can be gleaned from modern experiments in peak performance. Finally, she shares what she's learned from interviewing dozens of high achievers--from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon to the cartoon editor of The New Yorker to Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll. Winningly personal, insightful, and even life-changing, Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that--not talent or luck--makes all the difference"--

Grit Summary

13

KEY
IDEAS

Grit Summary

13

KEY IDEAS

KEY
IDEAS