Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

always
have to talk
about deliberate practice? Why does 
everything
have to come back to your research?”
Amanda and Lucy wish I’d relax a little and, you know, talk more about Taylor Swift.
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.
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

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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.
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.

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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.
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