GRIT AND
A GROWTH MINDSET
“Grit” is defined by Angela Lee Duckworth,
a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.”
Dr. Duckworth and her colleagues studied grit as a personality trait and observed that individuals high in grit were able to maintain their determination and motivation over long periods despite experiences with failure and adversity; and they concluded that grit is a better predictor of success than intellect or talent.
Her team went to West Point Academy and tried to predict which cadets would stay in military training and which would drop out.They went to the National Spelling Bee and tried to predict which students would advance farthest in the competition.They went to high-risk schools and tried to predict which teachers would be there at the end of the school year and which teachers would have the best outcomes in their classes.They looked at sales people in private companies and tried to predict who would keep their jobs and who would make the most money.
In all these different environments, one characteristic emerged as the most reliable predictor of success. It wasn’t social intelligence. It wasn’t appearance. It wasn’t physical strength or health. And it wasn’t IQ. It was grit.
Grit has nothing to do with intelligence or talent.It’s passion and perseverance for long-term goals. Passion and perseverance require stamina. Grit requires sticking with your future day in and day out—not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years and years—and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist, said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
Dr. Duckworth asked thousands of highschool students to take grit questionnaires and then waited more than a year to see who would graduate. She found that grittier kids were far more likely to graduate.
Dr. Duckworth doesn’t know where grit comes from. However, she believes that grit can be developed by having a “growth mindset,” a concept developed by Dr. Carol Dweck, the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University.
A growth mindset is a belief that the
ability to learn is not fixed, that it
can change with your effort.
Neuroscientists now know that this is in fact possible. (See, Neuroplasticity)
Dr. Dweck has shown that when kids read and learn about the brain and how it changes and grows in response to challenge, they’re much more likely to persevere when they fail because they don’t believe that failure is a permanent condition.
Success requires a growth mindset and grit.
