Could something predict success more than IQ or talent? We always hear people referencing how “smart” or “brilliant” a successful person is – and often times they are. But what if there was more to success than that? What explains the incredible success of a person with an average IQ, or the lack of success of a genius? Through her research, and in her TED Talk, Angela Lee Duckworth suggests the answer is a thing called “grit.” Duckworth describes this quality as “the perseverance and passion for a long-term goal.” So is grit an innate quality or can it be cultivated? And if it is a predictor of success, how can we get more of it? Some people are naturally more “gritty” than others. There are those that, despite external factors, are consistently able to achieve their long-term goals because they are persistent at their core. They are able to focus on the goal despite distractions, they often exhibit self-control, and are able to follow through with projects to execution.

But in my experience (and as Duckworth seems to suggest), passion feeds grit. We cannot ignore this component because it suggests that at least a portion of grit can be situational, or possibly cultivated. When we are passionate about what we do or about a cause we believe in, we seem to possess incredible amounts of grit – more so than we might naturally. Some examples include climbing Mount Everest, surviving military boot camp, and even completing medical school. All of these scenarios require a certain amount of grit, and it’s possible that passion is often at the root of the success, acting as the momentum carrying it forward.

Think of passion as the gasoline and grit as the fire – the more passion we have for the goal or outcome we are pursuing, the greater the grit we’re going to exhibit. Is it possible that the answer to how to tap into or strengthen our grit is to find our passion and pursue it?

Sources: http://99u.com/articles/7094/the-future-of-self-improvement-part-i-grit-is-more-important-than-talent http://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_the_key_to_success_grit?language=en

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