Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Abstract

In Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Angela Duckworth, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, looks at grit—passion coupled with perseverance—as being essential to success and achievement. The book pushes back on society’s overreliance on talent to explain excellence and instead highlights what relentless effort and an unwavering focus on a goal can achieve. Duckworth tells the story of grit’s role in human flourishing by weaving together biographies and interviews with highly successful individuals, “grit paragons” (p. 60), with largely jargon-free summaries of psychological research on topics such as passion, optimism, interest, and excellence.The book is organized into three sections: Part 1 introduces the concept of grit and why it matters; Part 2 presents ways in which individuals can grow their grit reserves from the “inside out” (p. 92); and Part 3 presents contexts such as parenting and the workplace that serve as “playing fields” (p. 223) for developing grit.In the opening chapter of Part 1, “Showing Up,” Duckworth introduces readers to grit and to her Grit Scale, which assesses the extent to which an individual “approaches life with grit” (p. 9), with passion and perseverance. Through examples of diverse contexts, ranging from the US Army’s training program at West Point to winners of the National Spelling Bee competition, she seeks to demonstrate that grit is better than many other psychological factors at predicting individual success. For example, drawing from her research in the Chicago Public Schools, Duckworth proposes that grit is a “more powerful predictor of graduation than how much students cared about school, how conscientious they were about their studies, and even how safe they felt at school” (p. 11). Toward the end of the chapter she raises a question that the next chapter tackles: What is the role of talent versus grit in individual success? Chapter 2, “Distracted by Talent,” considers this question and examines the notion that having “potential is one thing [, but] what we do with it is quite another” (p. 14). Through personal anecdotes and examples of towering historical figures such as Charles Darwin, Duckworth highlights humans’ tendency to attribute individual success to a natural gift and innate talent rather than exceptionally hard work or passion. For her, the fundamental folly of our hidden psychological bias favoring talent is that it overshadows the crucial role of effort in driving individual achievement. “Without effort,” she argues, “talent is nothing more than your unmet potential . . . what you could have done but didn’t” (p. 51).In chapter 3, “Effort Counts Twice,” Duckworth elaborates on her theory for getting from talent to achievement via effort. She argues that effort not only leads to developing one’s skills but importantly makes those skills usable and productive, thus having double the impact. While she does not explicitly untangle the relation between effort and grit, she maintains that effort underlies both passion and perseverance. To illustrate this centrality of sustained effort in achievement, she offers familiar, if timeless, advice on being successful from gritty individuals, including Harvard psychologist George Valliant, filmmaker Woody Allen, and novelist John Irving. Duckworth reminds readers that “getting back on the treadmill the next day, eager to try again” is a crucial component of grit, because “when you permanently turn your back on a commitment,” she says, “your effort plummets to zero . . . your skills stop improving, and at the same time, you stop producing anything with whatever skills you have” (p. 50).A core idea of chapter 4, “How Gritty Are You?” is that “grit is all about holding the same top-level goal for a very long time” (p. 66). Using this lens, Duckworth argues that passion signifies “consistency over time” rather than a short-lived burst of “infatuation” (p. 57). Drawing on her interviews with Jeff Gettleman, the East Africa bureau chief of the New York Times, and New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, she not only argues for the importance of holding goals but also presents ways to prioritize and organize goals into a hierarchy. The chapter also offers readers the chance to assess their own “grittiness” through an abridged version of Duckworth’s Grit Scale, subject to the caveat that one’s grit score is “a reflection of how you see yourself right now” (p. 56). But chapter 5, “Grit Grows,” proposes that grit can be intentionally honed. Here Duckworth takes on the nature-nurture question—How much of my grit score at this moment is a product of my genes? The answer is not entirely surprising. Similar to almost every other psychological trait, including IQ, Duckworth argues, grit is shaped by genetic factors as well as by experience and environment. More topically, for example, her research found that older individuals score higher on the grit scale. The implications and explanations of this find