But they don’t wish their mother was anything other than a paragon of grit.
In fact, Amanda and Lucy aspire to achieve the same. They’ve glimpsed the satisfaction that comes from doing something important—for yourself and others—and doing it well, and doing it even though it’s so very hard. They want more of that. They recognize that complacency has its charms, but none worth trading for the fulfillment of realizing their potential.
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Here’s another question I haven’t quite answered in my research: Can you have too much grit?
Aristotle argued that too much (or too little) of a good thing is bad. He speculated, for example, that too little courage is cowardice but too much courage is folly. By the same logic, you can be too kind, too generous, too honest, and too self-controlled. It’s an argument that psychologists Adam Grant and Barry Schwartz have revisited. They speculate that there’s an inverted-U function that describes the benefits of any trait, with the optimal amount being somewhere between the extremes.
So far, with grit I haven’t found the sort of inverse U that Aristotle predicted or that Barry and Adam have found for other traits, like extroversion. Regardless, I recognize that there are trade-offs to any choice, and I can appreciate how that might apply to grit. It isn’t hard to think of situations in which giving up is the best course of action. You may recall times you stuck with an idea, sport, job, or romantic partner longer than you should have.
In my own experience, giving up on piano when it became clear I had neither interest in it nor obvious talent was a great decision. I could have given up even earlier, actually, and saved my teacher from having to listen to me sight-read all the pieces I hadn’t practiced the week before. Giving up on becoming fluent in French was also a good idea, even though I did enjoy it and picked it up more quickly than I did piano. Less time spent on piano and French freed up time for pursuits I found more gratifying.
So, finishing whatever you begin without exception is a good way to miss opportunities to start different, possibly better, things. Ideally, even if you’re discontinuing one activity and choosing different lower-order goals, you’re still holding fast to your ultimate concern.
One reason I don’t worry much about an epidemic of grit is that such a prospect seems so removed from our current reality. How many days have you come home from work and said to your partner, “Gosh, everyone at the office is just too gritty! They stick with their most valued goals too long! They try too hard! I wish they were less passionate!”
Recently, I asked three hundred American adults to take the Grit Scale and, after receiving their scores, to tell me how they felt. Many said they were happy with their scores, and some wanted to be grittier. Nevertheless, in the entire sample, there wasn’t a single person who, upon reflection, aspired to be less gritty.
I’m certain most of us would be better off with more grit, not less. There may be exceptions—grit outliers who don’t need to be any grittier—but those exceptions are rare.
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I’ve been asked, on more than one occasion, why I feel grit is the only thing that matters. In fact, I don’t.
I can tell you, for example, that grit is not the only thing I want my children to develop as they round the corner from childhood to maturity. Do I want them to be great at whatever they do? Absolutely. But greatness and goodness are different, and if forced to choose, I’d put goodness first.
As a psychologist, I can confirm that grit is far from the only—or even the most important—aspect of a person’s character. In fact, in studies of how people size up others, morality trumps all other aspects of character in importance. Sure, we take notice if our neighbors seem lazy, but we’re especially offended if they seem to lack qualities like honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness.
So, grit isn’t everything. There are many other things a person needs in order to grow and flourish. Character is plural.
One way to think about grit is to understand how it relates to other aspects of character. In assessing grit along with other virtues, I find three reliable clusters. I refer to them as the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intellectual dimensions of character. You could also call them strengths of will, heart, and mind.
Intrapersonal character includes grit. This cluster of virtues also includes self-control, particularly as it relates to resisting temptations like texting and video games. What this means is that gritty people tend to be self-controlled and vice versa. Collectively, virtues that make possible the accomplishment of personally valued goals have also been called “performance character” or “self-management skills.” Social commentator and journalist David Brooks calls these “resume virtues” because they’re the sorts of things that get us hired and keep us employed.
Interpersonal character includes gratitude, social intelligence, and self-control over emotions like anger. These virtues help you get along with—and provide assistance to—other people. Sometimes, these virtues are referred to as “moral character.” David Brooks prefers the term “eulogy virtues” because, in the end, they may be more important to how people remember us than anything else. When we speak admiringly of someone being a “deeply good” person, I think it’s this cluster of virtues we’re thinking about.
And, finally, intellectual character includes virtues like curiosity and zest. These encourage active and open engagement with the world of ideas.
My longitudinal studies show these three virtue clusters predict different outcomes. For academic achievement, including stellar report card grades, the cluster containing grit is the most predictive. But for positive social functioning, including how many friends you have, interpersonal character is more important. And for a positive, independent posture toward learning, intellectual virtue trumps the others.
In the end, the plurality of character operates against any one virtue being uniquely important.
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I’m often asked whether encouraging grit does children a disservice by setting expectations unreasonably high. “Careful, Dr. Duckworth, or children will all grow up thinking they can be Usain Bolt, Wolfgang Mozart, or Albert Einstein.”
If we can’t be Einstein, is it worth studying physics? If we can’t be Usain Bolt, should we go for a run this morning? Is there any point in trying to run a little faster or longer than we did yesterday? In my view, these are absurd questions. If my daughter says to me, “Mom, I shouldn’t practice my piano today because I’ll never be Mozart,” I’ll say in reply, “You’re not practicing piano to be Mozart.”
We all face limits—not just in talent, but in opportunity. But more often than we think, our limits are self-imposed. We try, fail, and conclude we’ve bumped our heads against the ceiling of possibility. Or maybe after taking just a few steps we change direction. In either case, we never venture as far as we might have.
To be gritty is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. To be gritty is to hold fast to an interesting and purposeful goal. To be gritty is to invest, day after week after year, in challenging practice. To be gritty is to fall down seven times, and rise eight.
I was interviewed recently by a journalist. As he was packing up his notes, he said, “So, it’s obvious you could have talked all day. You really love this subject.”
“Oh, gosh. Is there anything as interesting as the psychology of achievement? Could there be anything more important?”
He chuckled. “You know,” he said, “I absolutely love what I do, too. It’s amazing to me how many people I know who’re well into their forties and haven’t really committed to anything. They don’t know what they’re missing.”
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