Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Fall seven, rise eight
. If I were ever to get a tattoo, I’d get these four
simple words indelibly inked.
What is hope?
One kind of hope is the expectation that tomorrow will be better than today. It’s the kind of hope
that has us yearning for sunnier weather, or a smoother path ahead. It comes without the burden of
responsibility. The onus is on the universe to make things better.
Grit depends on a different kind of hope. It rests on the expectation that our own efforts can
improve our future. 
I have a feeling tomorrow will be better
is different from 
I resolve to make
tomorrow better
. The hope that gritty people have has nothing to do with luck and everything to do
with getting up again.
In the spring semester of my first year of college, I enrolled in neurobiology.
I would come to each class early and sit in the front row, where I’d copy every equation and
diagram into my notebook. Outside of lecture, I did all the assigned readings and required problem
sets. Going into the first quiz, I was a little shaky in a few areas—it was a tough course, and my high
school biology coursework left a lot to be desired—but on the whole I felt pretty confident.
The quiz started out fine but quickly became more difficult. I began to panic, thinking over and
over: 
I’m not going to finish! I have no idea what I’m doing! I’m going to fail!
This, of course, was
a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more my mind was crowded by those heart-palpitating thoughts, the
less I could concentrate. Time ran out before I’d even read the last problem.
A few days later, the professor handed back the quiz. I looked down disconsolately at my
miserable grade and, shortly thereafter, shuffled into the office of my assigned teaching assistant.
“You should really consider dropping this course,” he advised. “You’re just a freshman. You have
three more years. You can always take the class later.”
“I took AP Bio in high school,” I countered.
“How did you do?”
“I got an A, but my teacher didn’t teach us much, which is probably why I didn’t take the actual AP
exam.” This confirmed his intuition that I should drop the course.
Virtually the same scenario repeated itself with the midterm, for which I’d studied madly, and after
which, I found myself in the teaching assistant’s office once again. This time his tone was more
urgent. “You do 
not
want a failing grade on your transcript. It’s not too late to withdraw from the
course. If you do, nothing will get factored into your GPA.”
I thanked him for his time and closed the door behind me. In the hallway, I surprised myself by not
crying. Instead, I reviewed the facts of the situation: two failures and only one more exam—the final
—before the end of the semester. I realized I should have started out in a lower-level course, and

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now, more than halfway through the semester, it was obvious my energetic studying wasn’t proving
sufficient. If I stayed, there was a good chance I’d choke on the final and end up with an F on my
transcript. If I dropped the course, I’d cut my losses.
I curled my hands into fists, clenched my jaw, and marched directly to the registrar’s office. At that
moment, I’d resolved to stay enrolled in—and, in fact, 
major
in—neurobiology.
Looking back on that pivotal day, I can see that I’d been knocked down—or, more accurately,
tripped on my own two feet and fell flat on my face. Regardless, it was a moment when I could have
stayed down. I could have said to myself: 
I’m an idiot! Nothing I do is good enough!
And I could
have dropped the class.
Instead, my self-talk was defiantly hopeful: