Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

            “Grit” is amazing personal development and self-help book arguing that secrets to success in any field are passion and perseverance not IQ and talent. Author of this book is Angela Duckworth, Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, founder and CEO of Character Lab, the winner of numerous awards for contribution to K-12 education. In this book, author talks about grit emphasising that skills that we can manage are more important that IQ and talent.

            This book is divided intro three parts. In the first part, author explains what is grit, and offers scale to find out how gritty we are. In the second part, author explains how we can cultivate and increase our grit scores. Last part is offers tips on how to grow grit in other people, how parents can cultivate grit in their children and how some culture can improve and sustain the grit. 

            The importance of this book lies in teaching people that they can achieve a lot of things in life by effort and teaching them to not hold self-limiting beliefs about role of IQ and talent in achieving success. This book offers hope that with a lot of efforts our dreams can come true. Also, book teaches which goals are worth pursuing and which goals could be replaced with others, how to make hierarchy of our goals and how to manage them. 

            I like how in this book every statement is supported by research data and it’s also accompanied with examples from real life. Author also gives examples from her personal life, which gives warm note to the book. Also, every theory and research in this book is explained in a way that makes it very easy to understand.

            I recommend this book to everyone, regardless at what life and career stage you are: it’s helpful for high students, University students, people who dropped from school, parents, teachers, psychologists et cetera. It will help you to overcome your fears and achieve your dreams. 

            I took a lot of notes during the reading, but some of my favourite quotes from this book are:

            “Consistency of effort over the long run is everything”;

            “Even more than the effort 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”;

            “How you see your work is more important than your job title. This means that you can go from job to career to calling-all without changing your occupation”;

            “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.”