Grit: The Final Secret to Achieving Success In Life

✅ Today's Tuesday • 📖 11 mins read

— By Dr. Sandip Roy.

Grit is not about being more talented or smarter than others. It is also not entirely about success after success.

People with grit accept their failures and successes equally, and then take action to improve. To have grit means how to be relentless in pursuing your goals.

In her New York Times bestseller book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Angela Duckworth says:

“It was this combination of passion and perseverance that made high achievers special. In a word, they had grit.”

Why We Need Grit For Success In Life

Grit combines passion and perseverance to achieve long-term goals. It is a hallmark of success and can be the single most important personality trait that all high achievers share.

Some reasons why grit is important for success are:

• Grit helps people persist in the face of adversity: Grit gives people a mental toughness that enables them to persist and even succeed in the face of obstacles and setbacks.
• Grit helps people achieve long-term goals: No one achieves success overnight, and achieving long-term goals requires patience and perseverance.
• Grit helps people avoid burnout: Without passion, perseverance leads to burnout, and without perseverance, people simply give up. Grit is the combination of passion and perseverance that helps people avoid burnout and stay committed to their goals.
• Grit is a combination of talent and effort: While talent is essential, it doesn’t automatically lead to achievement. Skill is a combination of talent and effort, and achievement is a combination of skill and effort.

Both the facets of grit, perseverance of effort plus consistency of interest, have a background of courage.

We may break down GRIT into:

• G — Goals: should be long-term, with many sub-goals spread out over time.
• R — Resilience: ready to bounce back and flex your mind around tough times.
• I — Integrity: a deliberate and honest discipline towards the goals you have set.
• T — Tenacity: is at the heart of grit. It is determination, intensity, and perseverance.

“Without effort, your talent is nothing more than unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t.”

― Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

7 Keys of Grit

These are some key ideas from Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth:

1. Effort Counts Twice

Duckworth presents achievement as a chain:

$\text{Talent}\times \text{Effort}=\text{Skill}$Talent×Effort=Skill

$\text{Skill}\times \text{Effort}=\text{Achievement}$Skill×Effort=Achievement

Talent affects how quickly someone develops a skill, but effort turns potential into ability—and then turns ability into accomplishment. This is why effort “counts twice.”

It does not mean that every additional effort automatically doubles progress; it means that sustained effort is involved in both developing skill and applying it.

The practical lesson is simple: ability matters, but what we do consistently with that ability matters more.

“Do not let temporary setbacks become permanent excuses.” ― Angela Duckworth

2. Grit Can Be Developed

Grit is not an inborn quality possessed only by unusually disciplined people. It can be cultivated through practice, supportive relationships, meaningful goals, and repeated encounters with difficulty.

Duckworth defines grit as the combination of:

• Passion: sustained interest in an important long-term goal
• Perseverance: continued effort despite setbacks, boredom, and frustration

Grit is therefore more than working hard for a short period. It involves maintaining direction over years while continuing to improve.

3. The Child-Rearing Balance: Supportive Demandingness

Duckworth describes effective parenting as a combination of high standards and genuine support. In developmental psychology, this resembles authoritative parenting: parents are demanding without being harsh, and supportive without being permissive.

Children need parents who:

• Set clear expectations
• Explain why those expectations matter
• Give children meaningful choices
• Allow them to struggle rather than immediately rescuing them
• Offer warmth, encouragement, and practical help
• Hold them accountable while respecting their growing autonomy

The goal is not to pressure children relentlessly or to protect them from every frustration. It is to communicate two messages at the same time:

“I believe you can do difficult things.”
“You will not have to do them alone.”

This balance is especially important when applying the “Hard Thing Rule.” Children should have a voice in choosing their difficult activity, while parents provide structure and encourage them to honor reasonable commitments.

4. Interest Is Discovered, Developed, and Deepened

Duckworth does not suggest that parents can simply manufacture lifelong passion in their children. Interest often begins with curiosity or enjoyment, but it develops through exploration, practice, encouragement, and growing competence.

Parents can help by:

• Exposing children to various activities
• Paying attention to what naturally absorbs them
• Giving interests time to develop
• Connecting effort with improvement
• Helping children find teachers, coaches, or communities
• Avoiding excessive pressure to identify a single passion too early

A child may not love an activity immediately. Interest can deepen after the child becomes more capable at it. Passion is often cultivated through engagement rather than discovered fully formed.

5. Deliberate Practice Turns Effort into Improvement

Grit is not simply repeating the same action indefinitely. Productive perseverance involves deliberate practice: identifying a weakness, working just beyond one’s current ability, receiving feedback, and trying again.

A useful cycle is:

1. Choose a specific skill to improve.
2. Work on a challenging aspect of that skill.
3. Get feedback.
4. Correct the mistake.
5. Repeat the process.

This is why improvement often looks like the description in Ta-Nehisi Coates’s reflection: producing something imperfect, returning to it, refining it, and gradually making it better.

Progress is frequently incremental and unattractive before it becomes impressive. When you embrace difficulty, you build resilience, confidence, and a growth mindset.

6. The “Hard Thing Rule”

Duckworth describes a family rule built around sustained commitment to something difficult. Its basic principles are:

• Everyone chooses a challenging activity.
• The activity requires regular practice.
• Each person commits for a meaningful period.
• People do not quit merely because the activity becomes frustrating.
• The individual retains a degree of choice over what the activity will be.

The point is not to force children into a particular sport, instrument, or hobby. It is to teach them that difficulty is a normal part of mastery. And that temporary frustration is not always a good reason to walk away.

At the same time, commitment should not become a justification for continuing an unsafe, exploitative, or fundamentally unsuitable activity. Grit requires judgment as well as persistence.

7. Grit Is More Than Talent, but It Is Not Everything

Grit challenges the tendency to explain achievement mainly through natural ability. High achievers often succeed because they practice consistently, learn from failure, and remain committed to important goals.

But grit is not a substitute for opportunity, good instruction, health, resources, or sound judgment. Nor is persistence always virtuous: abandoning a misguided goal can sometimes be wiser than continuing indefinitely.

The broader lesson is that potential is only a starting point. Achievement depends heavily on how people use their abilities, respond to setbacks, and sustain effort over time.

Research associated with Duckworth also treats grit as distinct from self-control and recognizes that it is only one contributor to a healthy and successful life.

Ultimately, Grit is less a promise that hard work guarantees success than an argument that meaningful achievement usually requires patience, practice, resilience, and a long-term commitment to becoming better.

The greatest insight from the book: Success is not solely determined by talent or luck, but rather by passion and perseverance. Grit is a skill that we can all learn to cultivate, whatever our proficiency or circumstances.

How To Have More Grit: Actionable Tips

• Grit is perseverance and passion for long-term goals.
• Gritty people take setbacks as part of their achievement journey.
• Having grit means keeping focus on progress, not chasing perfection or dwelling on mistakes.

Grit is not just something that people are born with; developing grit takes time and conscious effort, but it’s a worthwhile journey to a more fulfilling life.

One easy way to do so is to surround ourselves with gritty people. But it’s more satisfying to have self-sourced grit from goal-driven passion and perseverance.

Here are some actionable tips to grow your grit:

1. Find Your Passion

• Reconnect with your interests: Explore activities you enjoyed as a child or hobbies that spark your curiosity. Passion fuels intrinsic motivation, making it easier to persevere through challenges.
• Set meaningful goals: Align your pursuits with values and aspirations that resonate with you. A strong “why” behind your goals adds purpose and fuels grit.

2. Embrace the Growth Mindset

• Challenge yourself: Step outside your comfort zone and tackle tasks that feel slightly out of reach. View setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow.
• Celebrate the honest effort: Focus on putting in the work and acknowledge your incremental improvements. Don’t let temporary setbacks define your journey.
• Embrace lifelong learning: Dedicate time to acquiring new skills and knowledge. Learning fuels growth and keeps you engaged in the process.
• Don’t expect overnight changes. Be patient with yourself and feel happy about your progress.

3. Practice Deliberate Effort

• Set SMART goals: Make your goals Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This provides a clear roadmap and a sense of accomplishment.
• Develop routines and rituals: Create habits that support your goals, like daily practice sessions or weekly progress reviews. Consistency builds momentum and keeps you on track.
• Track your progress: Monitor your achievements and celebrate milestones. Seeing your progress visually can be a powerful motivator.

4. Build Resilience

• Practice optimistic self-talk: Challenge negative thoughts and reframe them into empowering statements. Cultivate a belief in your own abilities.
• Develop healthy coping mechanisms: Find ways to manage stress and emotions positively, like exercise, meditation, or talking to a trusted friend.
• Accept your struggles as ways to learn: Everyone faces challenges and struggles internally. Use them as stepping stones and opportunities to learn and grow.
• Seek support: Surround yourself with positive and encouraging people who believe in you and your goals. A supportive network can provide strength and motivation during challenging times.

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.”

― Angela Duckworth

An Inspiring Grit Story: The Grit of Kristin Armstrong

At 43, Kristin Armstrong was not supposed to win another Olympic medal. Twice retired, with three hip surgeries slowing her down, doubters had written her off.

Yet, with grit etched on her mind, she trained through pain and pedaled to first position in Rio, 2016. She completed the 29.8-kilometer course in 44 minutes and 26 seconds, becoming the oldest female cycling medalist ever.

Tears streamed down her face as she held the gold. She had proven that dreams and determination hold no expiration date.

Her third consecutive Olympic gold in cycling, against all odds, inspired athletes to rethink stereotypical age-appropriate ambitions.

Outside the cycling arena, Kristin Armstrong has a normal life, working as a director of community health at St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise, Idaho. She thanked her bosses for giving her a 12-week break for this event.

Teddy Roosevelt’s Quote On Grit

Theodore Roosevelt’s words best convey the essence of grit:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strived valiantly; who errs, who comes again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

Final Words

Finally, we must be wise enough to know when to grit, and when to quit. It is useless to waste our hard work, passion, and perseverance to achieve perfection or show someone down.

The advice I will carry from “Grit”: My grit grows as I pick myself up after falls and setbacks, abandon the low-level goals, and work harder on high-level goals.

√ Also Read: Sherri Fisher: ‘Trying harder is not sufficient by itself’

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