GRIT: The Art Of Not Giving Up… When You’re Not Gritty

I can’t begin to tell you how much of an emotional roller coaster this book was for me.

Being gritty seems so awesome (snapped from the book)

Currently, I’m going through a stage of my life where productivity and achievement have a huge role in my decision making. Not only the millennial in me keeps fiddling with Pomodoro timers and To-Do lists, I also thrive constantly on the idea of making a difference and finding meaning in whatever it is I commit myself to.

GRIT is a book about using those motivations as forces driving you to achieve mastery.

The book basically makes an exploration over numerous instances of grit in different settings, as Angela Duckworth’s research on the topic unfolded throughout her in depth study of people who are remarkably resilient to the hardship of constant improvement. From professional athletes to best selling authors, even spelling champions and comedians, Duckworth really takes her time to dive deep onto the motivations behind the resilience and passion with which these people live their lives.

On my previous reviews I’ve tried to go along the whole book scooping out the parts that I considered to be the most relevant and compelling, but somehow sticking to the general order in which the author originally laid each topic. But GRIT has just so many interesting insights that I thought it would be a better idea to simply share ideas as bullet points, right after we get a couple of core concepts out of the way.

So this is how it’s going to go: A. Core Concepts and B. Bullet Point Party. Then we say good bye and you go back to spying your “friends” on Instagram’s feed.

A. Core Concepts: “I won’t just have a job, I’ll have a calling”

1. What is grit?

As defined by Duckworth on her book, grit is a combination of passion and perseverance. Her years of research on the topic not only granted her the MacArthur Genius Fellowship award in 2013, it also proves that success doesn’t get randomly allocated depending on how much talent you were born with, but rather it’s the product of focused, motivated, relentless hard work over long periods of time.

To me, this was counter intuitive. I mean, sure, hard work does sound like something that will get you far in life. But, the fact that talent is not the main determinant in success… that’s just… unexpectedly encouraging.

2. How is this encouraging?

According to Duckworth, hard work alone does not do the trick. Grit explains success when it translates into hard work that is based on genuine, developed interest, and carried out following the principles of deliberate practice.

Ummm… Deliberate Practice?

See, practicing is not simply a matter of performing an action over and over. Practicing for improvement is the main tool that grit paragons use to become better at their crafts, and it provides them with the tools to eventually achieve mastery. Deliberate Practice does imply practicing your game in a systematic way that includes:

1. A clearly defined goal that stretches your current skills
2. Full concentration and effort
3. Immediate and informative feedback
4. Repetition

So the next time you’re about to learn a new skill or try to become better at an old one, try thinking of ways to take a more systematic approach to evaluating your own improvement, otherwise don’t bother (or don’t call it practice).

3. Sounds great… how do I check my grit levels?

Apparently, although not an easy feat, anyone can benefit from grit to achieve more in life.

Let me elaborate here with my own experience. When reading about all the wonders of being gritty and how it can push you through the hard times of your personal/professional life, I kept silently rejoicing of how gritty I was and somehow feeling that the author was talking about me every time she would describe the perseverance of the subjects of her study.

Guess what?

A section of the book that contains a grit self assessment showed up and, yeah, you guessed it,

I turned out to be just as gritty as your Average Joe.

To be honest, this hurt. Somewhere around the middle of the book I felt like it was an ode to this crew of amazing people who were great achievers and top performers, but suddenly there was no hope for me to belong in the group. My guess is that many readers go through this process. Because the thing is, given how much grit gets equated with professional and personal success, it does seem like quite a desirable personality feature.

Any good news… please?

It turns out that grit has a huge correlation with age. Yeah, it seems like the more experiences you have in life and the more you become acquainted with yourself and the environment, the grittier you become.

The older, the grittier (taken from the book. I hope there is no copyright issues…)

Now this is not to say that you can simply fall asleep on the laurels and wait for grit to magically come and save the day some years down the road. What this means is that in fact grit can be nurtured, and that we human beings tend to do it as we grow old.

Now, THAT is the really powerful message.

That is the message of hope.

B. Bullet Point Party Time!

• The older you get, the greater the chances of you being gritty. And I’m aware of the causal fallacy here, you don’t just magically become grittier as you grow old; you have to work for it. But this correlation between grit and age suggests that at some point in our lives, we understand the value of follow through and go for it. We develop the capacity for long-term passion and perseverance as we get older. Now, can you start sooner?
• Lectures don’t have half the effect of consequences. This goes in hand with the maturity principle explained before, because it suggests that experiences shape our character and help us differentiate, over the course of actions, between the truly important and the not so important.
• Grit can be nurtured in others, such as children, students or team mates. It requires a combination of supportive but demanding parenting/coaching, but it’s absolutely possible.
• Grit paragons share four psychological assets: 1. Interest for whatever their craft is, 2. Capacity to practice that craft in a systematic, structured way. 3. A sense of purpose when carrying out that craft. 4. Hope that they can actually make a difference through their craft.
• If you want to improve, try doing something you can’t yet do.
• “Finding your true calling” is a misleading and stressful misconception of self purpose because it makes you believe that you’re true meaning is somewhere in the world, waiting for you to discover it. Whence what you really have to do, is play an active role in experimenting with your current interests so that you develop them into new ones, or deepen them into greater ones.
• You can teach grit to your kids by example. Apparently there is a significant amount of research suggesting that children imitate the behavior of the adults around them (duh…!). Given this, showing them a gritty attitude goes a long way in raising them gritty people too.
• Want more tips to help kids to become grittier? Encourage them to practice follow through in their first years with extracurricular activities, and supportive, yet demanding rules for them to stick to them.

Thank you for reading and if you found this interesting, don’t hesitate to comment or reach out. I’ve found that a healthy discussion about a topic of our interest is the best way to digest the content.

I’m a business strategist with a proclivity for web design and programming. I live in Japan and currently help a number of tech startups in AgTech and EdTech get off the ground. Happy to connect on LinkedIn or Instagram. And while you’re at it, here’s my website and YouTube channel as well.