My dad used to say, “It’s not the dog in the fight, it’s the fight in the dog.”
He had several other antiquated gems for expressing that core idea – success is often less about natural talent than it is about persistence in pursuit of one’s goals.
Emily Hanford describes a study about the role of perseverance in achievement on MindShift. The findings bring us back to those oft-spoken words of wisdom from our dads.
The original research, conducted by Angela Duckworth and colleagues, uses a simple measure of “grit” and shows it to be of equal importance to intelligence for explaining success in a variety of intellectual tasks.
The results fit in well with other studies of talent and expertise that commonly conclude that intrinsic interest in the discipline, a burning desire to achieve, and dedication to thoughtful practice over an extended time are essential to top performance.
Image credit: aallingh
Good piece. Also look at the ACE (Acquired Childhood Experience) score and cross with the GRIT score to give a more complete picture of potential.