The Importance of Grit
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth is a book that has inspirited the lives of college students across the country. Some may remember Dr. Duckworth’s personable speech during Elon’s Spring Convocation in 2018.
Duckworth’s book is essentially about the characteristics that make up someone who has a lot of grit. Grit is about how much effort and resilience you put into your work. You can be talented and never improve because you don’t work hard or be untalented and never work hard and neither will lead to success. It’s about never giving up, even on the worst days.
Duckworth explains that grit can lead to three things: excelling, dropping out or plateauing. Excelling in a certain field comes from talent, skill and effort. It comes from developing interests before training weaknesses, knowing the science of deliberate practice and cultivating purpose. People who have a lot of grit are commonly extremely passionate about what they do and use that to motivate themselves to work harder.
“You can’t walk around Elon for a day and not hear someone talk about their GPA or a grade they received on an exam” says senior Sam Penny. “Coming from a prestigious high school, that was what I was focused on too. My parents were strict about grades, and I was always terrified that I would disappoint them. So I can’t lie, I fall into the trap of numbers too.”
Penny pushes herself mentally and physically as seen on her Instagram @_sampenny_
What a lot of us don’t stop to think about is that we’re learning. This is all a growing experience, and it’s not about a letter on a transcript or a number on an exam. It’s about retaining information and using it. The numbers may get you into graduate school or get you a better job, but they’re fairly insignificant in the grand scheme.
Glancy invests her time in her studies as well as dance, as seen on her Instagram @glancylogan
“My dad always says he earned the most from the class he did worse in,” says senior Logan Glancy. “That ‘C’ you received in your statistics class may make you upset and feel inadequate, but shouldn’t you take that ‘C’ and acknowledge how hard you worked? How much more you know now than you did before?”
This fixed mindset related to growth is what Duckworth focuses on.
The growth mindset refers to an individual's beliefs about their talents. A fixed mindset is a belief that one's talents are due to inborn traits. For example, someone believes they got a good grade because they are good at math. People with fixed mindsets believe that they can’t improve and are simply bad at something because it’s the way they are. People with growth mindsets say, “I know this is not my strength, but I’m going to do my best and work my hardest at it anyway.”
Grit is directly rooted in the growth mindset. Grit is our passion and perseverance for long term goals. As we continue at Elon University in this confusing time, we should all work to keep this mindset and not be too hard on ourselves over numbers that won’t matter in a year from now.
It’s about our experiences and gaining knowledge in our fields that will ultimately help us improve in the future. Let’s not focus on the grade but about how much we’re growing as people and as students.