752: Angela Duckworth | How to Grow Your Grit

Episode metadata

Episode title: 752: Angela Duckworth | How to Grow Your Grit
Show: The Jordan Harbinger Show
Owner / Host: Jordan Harbinger
Episode link: open in Snipd
Episode publish date: 2022-11-17

Show notes

Angela Duckworth is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, founder of the non-profit Character Lab, co-host of the No Stupid Questions podcast, and author of NYT bestseller Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.
What We Discuss with Angela Duckworth:
- What grit is and how it overrides the myth of innate "talent."
- How to quantify your own level of grit.
- How to grow your grit and achieve what once seemed impossible.
- Why, when you re a lifelong learner, you re always going to see in hindsight how you might have done something better in the past and this is a sign of improvement.
- How to know the difference between a lost cause to abandon and a challenge worthy of pursuit.

Episode AI notes

Talent is the speed and ease at which someone learns something, while effort is the quality of engagement. The combination of talent and effort creates skill. Grit, the combination of passion and perseverance for long-term goals, is essential for achieving long-term goals that take months, years, or even decades to accomplish. Grit determines the quality and quantity of effort over the long run and is crucial for staying in the race of life, which is like a marathon. (Note: Talent refers to how quickly and easily someone learns something. Effort is about the quality and engagement in learning. Skill is a combination of talent and effort. Grit, the combination of passion and perseverance, is crucial for long-term goals. Grit determines the quality and quantity of effort over time. Grit is essential for accomplishing meaningful long-term goals. Life is a marathon and Grit helps to stay in the race.)
Grit consists of passion for long-term goals derived from interest and purpose, with interest capturing one's attention and purpose being the sense of connection and service to others. Perseverance involves daily practice to improve and resilience or hope in the face of setbacks and failures, such as recovering from injuries or dealing with emotional setbacks in achieving long-term goals. (Note: Grit is defined as a combination of passion and perseverance for long-term goals. Passion comes from interest and a sense of other-oriented purpose. Perseverance requires daily practice and resilience in the face of setbacks.)
Grit can be defined as the combination of perseverance and passion, emphasizing the importance of both qualities in achieving a goal. (Note: Grit is defined as perseverance plus passion.)
Prioritizing high level goals requires making choices and being willing to close doors, even though it can be difficult, especially for young people. In adolescence and early adulthood, it's common to focus on opening doors to various opportunities, but at some point, it becomes essential to start walking through specific doors and accepting that others will shut. This process can be challenging, as it may involve letting go of potential paths and exploring a single direction. Despite the difficulty of hearing doors shut, there is deep satisfaction in pursuing something one is good at and finding fulfillment in that chosen path. (Note: Prioritizing high level goals can be challenging, especially when there are multiple things one wants to achieve. Young people often struggle with closing doors and making choices. In early life, many opportunities are about opening doors and exploring possibilities. At some point, it becomes necessary to start walking through doors and accepting the closure of other options. Realizing that certain paths are no longer viable can be difficult, but it can also lead to a sense of satisfaction in pursuing a chosen path.)

Quick Takeaways

Grit, defined as a combination of passion and perseverance, is crucial for accomplishing long-term goals and pushing through challenges.
Effort plays a dual role in skill development and application, surpassing talent in terms of achievements.
Developing psychological assets like interest, practice, purpose and hope can nurture and strengthen grit.

Deep Dives

The Importance of Grit in Achieving Long-Term Goals

Grit, defined as a combination of passion and perseverance for long-term goals, plays a crucial role in determining the quality and quantity of our efforts over a lifetime. It is essential for accomplishing long-term goals that hold significance to us. While talent may provide a head start in skill development, effort is what drives skill acquisition and makes it productive. Grit enables individuals to push through challenges, setbacks, and even failures, maintaining focus on high-level goals and continuously striving for improvement.

Passion and Perseverance as Components of Grit

Grit comprises two key components: passion and perseverance. Passion is fueled by interest and purpose. It involves being captivated by the subject matter and experiencing a deep sense of meaning and connection to it. Perseverance, on the other hand, is driven by daily practice and resilience. It involves consistent efforts to improve and overcome setbacks, failures, and adversities. Gritty individuals find ways to derive satisfaction and progress from both small and large victories, maintaining a forward-looking and growth-oriented mindset.

The Relationship Between Talent, Effort, and Achievement

While talent may provide a natural advantage in learning and skill acquisition, effort is instrumental in turning talent into tangible achievements. Talent helps develop skill, but effort plays a dual role: it leads to skill development and ensures the productive application of that skill. A person who exerts consistent effort over time can surpass someone with more talent but less effort in terms of accomplishments. Effort's impact on achievement extends to various domains, including education and sports, requiring the dedication to practice, persevere through challenges, and continually pursue improvement.

Grit and Achievement

Grit, defined as the combination of passion and perseverance, plays a crucial role in achieving success. Talents should not be seen as fixed abilities but as skills that can be developed through effort and practice. Friedrich Nietzsche argued that labeling extraordinary achievements as 'natural' or 'genius' lets us off the hook and limits our own potential. By recognizing that excellence is built through consistent effort, individuals can break down complex goals into manageable components and work towards achieving them step by step. An understanding of the hierarchy of goals and the coherence of one's actions towards fulfilling their highest-level goal is essential for grit. Maintaining consistency, tenacity, and flexibility at different levels of goals determines the success of one's pursuits.

Cultivating Grit

Grit can be developed and cultivated through four key psychological assets: interest, practice, purpose, and hope. Developing a deep interest in a particular subject or endeavor provides the foundation for perseverance and growth. Practice is crucial for honing skills and improving performance over time. As individuals delve deeper into their pursuits, a sense of purpose emerges, connecting their actions to a higher goal or cause. Finally, hope, the belief that there is something one can do, fuels resilience in the face of setbacks and challenges. Each of these components can be nurtured and strengthened through intentional efforts and understanding the science behind their development.

Snips

[05:25] The Relationship Between Talent, Effort, and Grit

🎧 Play snip - 2min️ (03:44 - 05:24)

✨ Summary

Talent is the speed and ease at which someone learns something, while effort is the quality of engagement. The combination of talent and effort creates skill. Grit, the combination of passion and perseverance for long-term goals, is essential for achieving long-term goals that take months, years, or even decades to accomplish. Grit determines the quality and quantity of effort over the long run and is crucial for staying in the race of life, which is like a marathon.

📚 Transcript

Click to expand

Speaker 2

Okay, so what is talent as opposed to Grit, or what is Grit as opposed to talent?

Speaker 1

Talent is a word that people use differently, so I should say what I mean by talent. When I use the word talent, or when I hear the word talent, I primarily think of how quickly or easily you learn something. If you are really talented at basketball, it means that when you play basketball, when you practice, you get better at basketball, fast and with relative ease. But effort, I think, is different. Effort isn't how quickly or easily you get better at something, it's the quality and the quality of your engagement. So in a way you can think of talent and effort being really the two things that in combination creates skill.

Speaker 2

Why is Grit so important then? What does Grit determine in our lives?

Speaker 1

I think for goals that take a long time to complete, not minutes, not days, not weeks, but for kids months and for grownups, years, decades, even a lifetime, for those kinds of goals, It really is a matter of showing up and continuously trying to make progress. And Grit, the combination of passion and perseverance for long-term goals, is enormously important in determining the quality and the quantity of our effort over the long run. It is, therefore, essential really to accomplishing those long-term goals that in many ways mean the most to us. It's all about the fact that life really is by design or by fact, it's a marathon and Grit really keeps you in the race.

[07:58] The Two Components of Grit: Passion and Perseverance

🎧 Play snip - 2min️ (05:36 - 07:57)

✨ Summary

Grit consists of passion for long-term goals derived from interest and purpose, with interest capturing one's attention and purpose being the sense of connection and service to others. Perseverance involves daily practice to improve and resilience or hope in the face of setbacks and failures, such as recovering from injuries or dealing with emotional setbacks in achieving long-term goals.

📚 Transcript

Click to expand

Speaker 1

So I define Grit as really essentially two things in combination, passion for long-term goals, and perseverance for long-term goals. But I can further deconstruct those or double-click on passion and double-click on perseverance. I think that's actually helpful. And in the book, I do exactly that. I say, you know, if you ask, where does passion come from? Where does loving what you do and feeling every day that it's fascinating and meaningful that it gives your life meaning? It really comes from two sources. One is interest. Having your attention captivated by this thing that you're working on. As a psychologist, I am infinitely interested in human nature and the psychology of Grit and the psychology of achievement. Every day I wake up and I'm just as interested in that topic as I was the day before. Interest is one driver of passion. The other is purpose. It's different to say that this is interesting to me than to say this is purposeful. And again, to use myself as an example, I not only find psychology interesting and not only captures my attention, but I feel like my work is purposeful in the sense that it could benefit Other people. When I talk about purpose, I really mean feeling a connection to and a service to other people. So passion comes from interest and a sense of other oriented purpose. The difference comes from one, the capacity to do daily practice to get better. If you think about what person means, it might sound to you like, well, I don't know what it'll sound like to different people, but when I think about perseverance, one form of it is waking Up and trying to get a little bit better at something that you're doing compared to the day before. Another driver of perseverance is resilience or hope. And that is to say that in the face of setbacks that wouldn't necessarily happen to you every day, but just, you know, the really bad season. You're an athlete and you have an injury. You're in sales and you could catastrophically blow up. Big client. You know, these kinds of sometimes really emotional setbacks and failures. Resilience or hope in the face of those. And when I recap, passion to me comes from interest and purpose. Perseverance comes in the form of daily practice and then hope in the face of adversity.

[33:19] Defining Grit: Perseverance and Passion

🎧 Play snip - 5sec️ (32:55 - 33:01)

✨ Summary

Grit can be defined as the combination of perseverance and passion, emphasizing the importance of both qualities in achieving a goal.

📚 Transcript

Click to expand

Speaker 2

Given that grit is perseverance plus passion is that fair to say that is exactly what I want to say

[47:47] Prioritizing High Level Goals and Making Choices

🎧 Play snip - 1min️ (47:56 - 48:58)

✨ Summary

Prioritizing high level goals requires making choices and being willing to close doors, even though it can be difficult, especially for young people. In adolescence and early adulthood, it's common to focus on opening doors to various opportunities, but at some point, it becomes essential to start walking through specific doors and accepting that others will shut. This process can be challenging, as it may involve letting go of potential paths and exploring a single direction. Despite the difficulty of hearing doors shut, there is deep satisfaction in pursuing something one is good at and finding fulfillment in that chosen path.

📚 Transcript

Click to expand

Speaker 2

So how do we prioritize which high level goal we want to achieve? Because it seems rare for young people or anybody to just have one thing they can say that they want.

Speaker 1

Well, there are choices to make, and I think it is hard for young people to close doors. For a lot of your early life, adolescence and early adulthood, everything you do is opening doors, like, oh, that'll open the door of this opportunity. If you do this, you can do anything. But I think at some point, you have to start walking through doors, and you have to listen to other doors shut. I think that's very hard, but for me, I think, ultimately, as hard as it was for me to hear a door shut, like, okay, if I start walking through this door, the door of medical school, which I thought about for a while in my life, it eventually shut. Like, I had to realize at some point that I was going to not ever become a doctor, and I was foreclosing, you know, a whole life that I could have had, that I might actually enjoy. I think that, for me personally, though it was hard to hear other doors shut, it is deeply satisfying to do something where I can say, you know, I'm pretty good at it.