The Power of Grit
How Effort Counts Twice Towards Achievement
Angela Duckworth's TED Talk from 2013 has had more than 12 million views. In her book, Grit, she expands on that talk by persuasively arguing that passion and perseverance are more important than talent (or natural ability) when it comes to achievement.
Duckworth concedes that talent – how fast one can improve a skill – absolutely matters. But effort factors into the equation twice — not once. Here's why:
Talent x Effort = Skill Skill x Effort = Achievement
Note that effort shows up in both equations: effort helps build skill and it helps make skill productive. Surprisingly, using this equation, someone twice as talented but half as hardworking might reach the same level of skill, but actually produce much less over time. It sounds odd, but run the math and you'll see what I mean.
And what do I mean? The now common notion that 10,000 hours of practice described in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and pioneered by the late Florida State professor, K. Anders Ericcson, also requires that the practice be "deliberate." It must be intentional and highly focused on improving performance, with particular emphasis on rigorous practice sessions that stretch current capabilities, combined with immediate feedback and repetition.
Granted that Ericcson's work is often oversimplified (even misrepresented) by commentators, but he still, in my opinion, underestimates the value of innate ability. Duckworth's research at the University of Pennsylvania is more practical. Clearly, individual potential in a given discipline is not equally distributed, but with proper practice and significant effort, each person's ceiling for achievement is almost always dramatically higher than commonly accepted.
Duckworth's book is terrific and has received a staggering level of praise from a vast array of scholars, authors, and expert performers. For anyone on the journey of self improvement, Grit hits the mark.