Grit Summary

1. Grit is about maintaining the same top-level goal for a very long time.
2. GRIT has four psychological assets: (1) interest (2) practice (3) purpose (4) hope.
3. Gritty people perform more deliberate practice and experience more flow.
4. For paragons of grit, the long days and evenings of toil, the setbacks and disappointments, and struggle, the sacrifice—all this is worth it because, ultimately, their efforts pay dividends to other people.
5. Often, the critical gritty-or-not decisions we make are a matter of identity more than anything else.

The concept of GRIT can be explained in terms of perseverance. Only perseverance will lead to high achievement. A high achiever never believes that they will ever reach their goals, they are always striving more, and are the exact opposite of complacent, constantly unsatisfied. But in a weird way, being unsatisfied and constantly chasing more is satisfying to them. 

Someone with true grit has enduring passion, they push through pain and frustration, giving up is simply not an option for them.

"A combination of passion and perseverance makes high achievers special. High achievers have grit."

Grit is an investigation into the importance of determination and perseverance for success. Society tends to focus on the importance of natural talent. We observe athletes, musicians, and academics performing at the highest level and assume they are there because of lucky genetics. The author accepts that genetics play a part in achieving success, but she suggests that effort is twice as significant. The book provides guidance on how you can encourage grit, maintain grit, and intelligently apply effort to improve your chances of reaching your goals. 

Duckworth describes the concept of grit as a form of perseverance. It is essential to anybody attaining high levels of achievement. High achievers are never satisfied with minimal goals. Therefore, these people never believe they will reach their goals, as they are always striving for more. High achievers are also constantly unsatisfied with their performance and their outcomes. Interestingly, these people enjoy this dissatisfaction as they always want to chase more. True grit consists of enduring passion, pain, and frustration. People with true grit do not have ‘giving up’ as an option. 

Society is obsessed with the idea of natural talent. We love the idea of people being innately good at things, and we use this as an excuse for why we cannot achieve specific goals. However, Duckworth challenges the idea that talent should be considered the most important feature of success. She does not believe that talent is the only reason we achieve our goals. Effort is just as important as talent when considering outcomes. Additionally, individuals’ obsession with talent can distract them from applying maximal effort to all they do. 

1. The Psychology of Achievement: Skill requires talent and effort, and Achievement requires skill and effort.
2. Grit and Goal Structures: Have a top-level goal (or “ultimate concern”).
3. The Power of Passion and Practice: Embrace long-term deliberate practice, and Work on weaknesses
4. The Guiding Light of Purpose and Hope: Be an optimistic self-improver.
5. Creating Grit from the Outside In: Grit can be cultivated in our external environment, via parents and role models, extra-curricular activities, and teams and cultures.

• Grit is the combination of passion (a deep, enduring knowledge of what you want) and perseverance (hard work and resilience).
•  It’s about moving in a direction with consistency and endurance, like having a clear inner compass that guides all your decisions and actions.
• Grit = Passion + Perseverance

• Effort (which is sustained by grit) is doubly important. 
•  You must put in effort to hone your natural talents into tangible skills through practice and improvement.
• You must also put in effort to apply those skills to solve real-world problems to attain achievement.
• Talent x Effort = Skill
• Skill x Effort = Achievement

You might think, talent is essential for success but at the end, the winners are those who spend hours and years to do practice to gain talent.

So, talent is not god gifted but self gift that can be gained by practice and effort!

Can you take 5 steps at a time? No? Similarly when it comes to taking steps towards your goal, take small steps that are relevant to your top level goals.

The journey to thousand miles begins with one step, take that one step.

Enough of To-Do list, make a NOT TO-DO list and write down what distracts you from your goal. You will be able to imagine all the unnecessary and distractive activities.

Once, you know what not to do, you will be able to eliminate it.

I watched this TED Talk by Angela Duckworth about the secret recipe of success of people. Her research did confirm as what conventional wisdom said, 'good attitude and stay focus is the way for you to grow.'

1. Grit is about maintaining the same top-level goal for a very long time.
2. GRIT has four psychological assets: (1) interest (2) practice (3) purpose (4) hope.
3. Gritty people perform more deliberate practice and experience more flow.
4. For paragons of grit, the long days and evenings of toil, the setbacks and disappointments, and struggle, the sacrifice—all this is worth it because, ultimately, their efforts pay dividends to other people.
5. Often, the critical gritty-or-not decisions we make are a matter of identity more than anything else.

Hard work might not always pay off immediately, but it comes through in the long run.

Talent × Effort = Skill

Skill × Effort = Achievements

Talent improves with effort and after much effort is put in it turns into a skill.

Grit is about committing to the goal, no matter how difficult it becomes.

Your potential is just a dream if you don’t put in the effort required to make it work.

In the end, the reason why what you do will be successful is because you didn’t give up.

remember, the saying, “keep coming back it works if you work it.”

Don’t be disappointed if you are not as courageous as you expect. GRIT grows, so give it some time.

Remember: you need to practice a thing for 10,000 hours to gain mastery.

To grow your grit, you need the following:

• Interest: your interest is tied to what you're passionate about. It makes you enjoy what you do

• Capacity to practice: when you constantly practice a thing, you become better at it

• Purpose: you must know that what you do matters a lot because it is connected to others

• Hope: this plays an essential role in grit. Hope is what keeps you going when things get tough

Development requires growth, and you need a good environment to achieve that. Deepening is something you should do throughout your lifetime. It involves evaluating yourself to determine your progress.

Here are some way to be deliberate in practice:

• Set a challenging objective that is based on getting better in any area of weakness

• A combination of attention and effort is what will help you actualize your goals

• Seek feedback from others so you know the areas to improve on

• When you do these steps frequently, you will become more competent

I find it very motivating and inspirational 

Mythologizing natural talent let’s us off the hook. It makes us relax into the status quo.