Notebook for Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance Duckworth, Angela Citation (APA): Duckworth, A. (2016). Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance [Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com Part I: What Grit Is and Why It Matters Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 1: Showing Up > Page 9 “I finish whatever I begin.” Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 2: Distracted by Talent > Page 23 “The plain fact remains that men the world over possess amounts of resource, which only very exceptional individuals push to their extremes of use.” Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 2: Distracted by Talent > Page 25 The “naturalness bias”is a hidden prejudice against those who’ve achieved what they have because they worked for it, and a hidden preference for those whom we think arrived at their place in life because they’re naturally talented. We may not admit to others this bias for naturals; we may not even admit it to ourselves. But the bias is evident in the choices we make. Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 3: Effort Counts Twice > Page 39 mythologizing natural talent lets us all off the hook. It lets us relax into the status quo. Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 3: Effort Counts Twice > Page 39 Great things are accomplished by those “people whose thinking is active in one direction, who employ everything as material, who always zealously observe their own inner life and that of others, who perceive everywhere models and incentives, who never tire of combining together the means available to them.” Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 3: Effort Counts Twice > Page 40 Nietzsche implored us to consider exemplars to be, above all else, craftsmen: “Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can name great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became ‘geniuses’(as we put it). . . . They all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to construct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole.” Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 3: Effort Counts Twice > Page 50 Many of us, it seems, quit what we start far too early and far too often. Even more than the effort a gritty person puts in on a single day, what matters is that they wake up the next day, and the next, ready to get on that treadmill and keep going. Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 4: How Gritty Are You? > Page 64 I’ve met many young people who can articulate a dream—for example, to be a doctor or to play basketball in the NBA— and can vividly imagine how wonderful that would be, but they can’t point to the mid-level and lower-level goals that will get them there. Part II: Growing Grit from the Inside Out Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 6: Interest > Page 111 ‘It’s not important that I understand everything. It’s important that I listen.’” Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 7: Practice > Page 141 “Between coaches and parents and friends and the media, they’ve learned that failing is bad, so they protect themselves and won’t stick their neck out and give their best effort.” Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 9: Hope > Page 178 When you keep searching for ways to change your situation for the better, you stand a chance of finding them. When you stop searching, assuming they can’t be found , you guarantee they won’t. Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 9: Hope > Page 186 The lesson was that, when you have setbacks and failures, you can’t overreact to them. You need to step back, analyze them, and learn from them . But you also need to stay optimistic.” Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 9: Hope > Page 190 But I also worry about people who cruise through life, friction-free, for a long, long time before encountering their first real failure. They have so little practice falling and getting up again. They have so many reasons to stick with a fixed mindset. Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 9: Hope > Page 195 “Race your strengths and train your weaknesses.” Part III: Growing Grit from the Outside In Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 10: Parenting For Grit > Page 210 I’d meet many people who were writing stuff. They’d say to me, ‘Oh yeah , I am a writer as well but I’ve never finished anything.’ Well, in that case, you are not a writer. You are just somebody who sits down and writes things on a bit of paper. If you’ve got something to say, go ahead and say it and finish it.” Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 10: Parenting For Grit > Page 212 there was so much evidence for the benefits of supportive and demanding parenting that scientists could profitably move on to thornier research questions. Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 11: The Playing Fields of Grit > Page 238 He’s run dozens of studies in which rats are randomly assigned to do something hard— like press a lever twenty times to get a single pellet of rat chow— or something easy, like press that lever two times to get the same reward. Afterward, Bob gives all the rats a different difficult task. In experiment after experiment, he’s found the same results : Compared to rats in the “easy condition,” rats who were previously required to work hard for rewards subsequently demonstrate more vigor and endurance on the second task. Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 11: The Playing Fields of Grit > Page 241 In our family, we live by the Hard Thing Rule. It has three parts. The first is that everyone—including Mom and Dad—has to do a hard thing. A hard thing is something that requires daily deliberate practice. I’ve told my kids that psychological research is my hard thing, but I also practice yoga. Dad tries to get better and better at being a real estate developer; he does the same with running. My oldest daughter, Amanda, has chosen playing the piano as her hard thing. She did ballet for years, but later quit. So did Lucy. This brings me to the second part of the Hard Thing Rule: You can quit. But you can’t quit until the season is over, the tuition payment is up, or some other “natural”stopping point has arrived. You must, at least for the interval to which you’ve committed yourself, finish whatever you begin. In other words, you can’t quit on a day when your teacher yells at you, or you lose a race, or you have to miss a sleepover because of a recital the next morning. You can’t quit on a bad day. And, finally, the Hard Thing Rule states that you get to pick your hard thing. Nobody picks it for you because, after all, it would make no sense to do a hard thing you’re not even vaguely interested in. Even the decision to try ballet came after a discussion of various other classes my daughters could have chosen instead. Highlight (yellow) - Chapter 12: A Culture of Grit > Page 261 I have learned that if you create a vision for yourself and stick with it, you can make amazing things happen in your life. My experience is that once you have done the work to create the clear vision , it is the discipline and effort to maintain that vision that can make it all come true. The two go hand in hand. The moment you’ve created that vision, you’re on your way, but it’s the diligence with which you stick to that vision that allows you to get there.