Grit - Book Summary & Review

Grit

The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Angela Duckworth

Brief Description of the Book

Why do naturally talented people frequently fail to reach their potential while other far less gifted individuals go on to achieve amazing things? The secret to outstanding achievement is not talent, but a passionate persistence. In other words, grit.

MacArthur Genius Award-winning psychologist Angela Duckworth shares fascinating new revelations about who succeeds in life and why. Based on her cutting-edge research, Duckworth shows how many people achieve remarkable things not just by relying on innate natural talent, but by practising what she calls grit. She then offers a Grit Formula to help anyone to become more gritty, focusing on six key factors: hope, effort, precision, passion, ritual and prioritisation.

Leaping past clichés such as 'success is all about hard work', Grit offers a fresh and motivating way to climb to heights far beyond what natural talent would predict.

(From Amazon.in)

Notable Ideas of the Book

Talent is overrated. What we really need is grit and determination.

Even though we say that hard work is the key to success, we have a natural-talent bias. More often than not, if a candidate is having a natural talent, they’ll be considered more valuable than someone who has worked hard to build up their talent. Effort is twice as valuable as talent, something people with an initial lack of talent often discover. Effort not only leads to skill; it also leads to results.

We can look at an equation: To determine your level of skill, you take your talent in a given field and multiply it by the amount of effort you put in. So, Talent × Effort = Skill.

But when it comes to getting results, we have to put skill back into the equation. The results will depend on the amount of effort we put in. So, this time, Skill × Effort = Achievement.

The remarkable power of effort is often discovered by people who fight to overcome a lack of talent. A good example of this is the award-winning writer, John Irving. He was not a natural talent, Irving struggled in school, getting held back a year, with below average scores in his English Exams and SAT exam. Irving was dyslexic and needed more time than others to pick up his reading and writing skills.

However, Irving didn’t give up. Instead, he put twice the amount of effort into his studies as everyone else. His grit and hard work finally paid off. His novel The World According to Garp won the National Book Award in 1978.

By creating and sticking to low-level goals, you can realize long-term goals and keep your dreams alive. We should do what we love. But, more importantly, we need to stay committed to doing what we love. Low-level goals can serve as a path to meeting your goals.

Having a life goal is inspirational, but it can also lead us into forgetting the small goals we need to accomplish in order to make it happen.

It is important to choose work that interests you, but don’t let unrealistic expectations get in the way.

No matter how much grit we have, if we want to stay motivated, it’s important to do something that interests us. A study confirmed that people are at their happiest when their work intersects with their personal interests.

It’s also very important to have realistic expectations about the jobs that are available to you. Psychologist Barry Schwartz noticed that young adults today have an impractical outlook on both their professional and romantic lives.

Today’s generation should know that, there are many jobs and partners out there that could be the basis for a successful relationship or career. Ignoring everything else waiting for that special unique someone or something is never feasible.

Be smart about how you practice and avoid getting stuck on autopilot. Practicing hard can be a waste of time if you don’t practice intelligently.

People who practice always have more success than people who put in no effort at all. Psychologist Anders Ericsson has discovered that the key to success is intelligent practice. Successful people don’t practice vaguely, they practice with precision.

The benefits of deliberate practice are threefold: it’ll get you off autopilot, help you avoid repetition and bring great results. Success won’t happen until we’ll stop and reflect on precisely what it is we need to improve and start practicing smartly.

Finding purpose in your work is a great motivator, but finding your true calling can take time. Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like. And we’ve all procrastinated and postponed doing a task that seemed like a hassle at least once.

The best way to avoid procrastination is to get motivated by finding the purpose in your work. Motivation comes easily when we’re doing something we love. But realizing how our work contributes to the well-being of others can be just as motivating. When employees treat their work as a calling, their jobs starts giving them a greater sense of purpose in life, motivating them to make a difference.

Finding our true calling can take time. Many people end up finding their true calling while still being stuck with their boring day job.

Teachers and parents can help ensure future success by rewarding hard work more than natural talent. Children are often told that they’ll never be smart enough and that hard work is a waste of time. This can lead to people never realizing their full potential, to prevent this, it’s important to recognize and encourage hard work instead of just rewarding talent.

Children should be reminded that skill can be achieved through hard work and that grit and determination bring rewards. It is important for adults and teachers to work as role models. Children learn from the example of adults that change and improvement is possible.

Grit is a valued characteristic in some cultures and successful businesses. The mindset of grit and determination get promoted on a large scale. However in Finland, these cultural values are widely promoted. Finland is a great proponent of grit. The Finnish have their own word for grit, sisu, which refers to a quality of perseverance that has become integral to Finnish culture. Finnish psychologist Emilia Lahti after surveying a thousand Finnish people, has found that 83 percent thought that sisu is a characteristic that is learned and not an innate quality.

And, just as grit can be learned, it can also be instilled as a virtue in a company.

Ruchika Verma

Reviews

"Impressively fresh and original … Grit scrubs away preconceptions about how far our potential can take us. And it solves the riddle of how those not likely to succeed in fact do. Buy this, send copies to your friends, and tell the world that there is, in fact, hope. We can all dazzle."

(Susan Cain, bestselling author of Quiet)

"At a time when our collective notion of success has shrunk to the point of being unrecognizable, Angela Duckworth arrives to restore it. With a mix of masterful storytelling and the latest science, she shows that perseverance and passion matter at least as much as talent and intelligence. And far from simply urging us to work harder for the sake of working harder, GRIT offers a truly sane perspective: that true success comes when we devote ourselves to endeavors that give us joy and purpose."

(Arianna Huffington, bestselling author of Thrive)

"I kept wanting to read this book aloud―to my child, my husband, to everyone I care about. There are no shortcuts to greatness, it's true. But there is a roadmap, and you are holding it."

(Amanda Ripley, best selling author of

The Smartest Kids in the World)

You can buy this amazing book from Amazon