What is the main characteristic distinguishing top performers from the regulars? Is it talent or effort? That’s the question that Angela Duckworth set up to answer with her book. The answer is on the cover: Grit.
What is Grit?
Grit is passion and perseverance for long-term serving a meaningful goal. Talent matters less. It's all about effort.
As the author puts it in the title of one of the first chapters, Effort counts twice.
The effort helps you build the skill.
And as you increase your skill effort turns that skill into achievement.
But it is not any kind of effort, but focused effort. Jumping from one thing to the other will not help. Grit is about obsessive focus.
Here are the key ideas I saved from the book:
The 4 Psychological Assets for Grit
These are the 4 characteristics of gritty people:
Interest. Passion begins with intrinsically enjoying what you do.
Practice. The discipline of trying to do things better than we did yesterday. Focused, full-hearted, challenge-exceeding-skill practice that leads to mastery. “Whatever it takes, I want to improve!” is a refrain of all paragons of grit
Purpose. The conviction that your work matters. Purpose is found by contributing to the well-being of others.
Hope. At various points, in big ways and small, we get knocked down. If we stay down, grit loses. If we get up, grit prevails.
Interest is discovered. Let’s go to practice.
Deliberate Practice
Grit is not just about the quantity of time devoted to interests, but also the quality of time. Not just more time on task, but also better time on task. Experts practice differently:
First, they set a stretch goal, zeroing in on just one narrow aspect of their overall performance.
Rather than focus on what they already do well, experts strive to improve specific weaknesses.
They intentionally seek out challenges they can’t yet meet.
Then, with undivided attention and great effort, experts strive to reach their stretch goal.
In summary: A clearly defined stretch goal. Full concentration and effort. Immediate and informative feedback Repetition with reflection and refinement Repeated until conscious incompetence becomes unconscious competence.
What about Flow?
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi observed that “skilled people can sometimes experience highly enjoyable states know as ‘flow’ ". Is that the same thing? No. Deliberate practice couldn't ever feel as enjoyable as flow. It's hard work.
Deliberate practice is carefully planned, and flow is spontaneous. flow and grit go hand in hand. Gritty people do more deliberate practice and experience more flow.
Deliberate practice is for preparation, and flow is for performance.
What about Purpose?
Purpose is more than doing your job. The difference is best explained by the parable of the bricklayers.
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. Many of us would like to be like the third bricklayer, but instead, identify with the first or second. The differences:
a job: “I view my job as just a necessity of life, much like breathing or sleeping”
a career: “I view my job primarily as a stepping-stone to other jobs”
a calling: “My work is one of the most important things in my life”
Hope and Learned helplessness
You need hope to get over the obstacles. Hope does not mean you have faith tomorrow will be better, but that you will make tomorrow better. Because it isn’t suffering that leads to hopelessness. It’s suffering you think you can’t control.