Angela Duckworth’s Book Grit: Passion And Endurance
Is talent innate or created? This is one of the questions that the American author Angela Duckworth asks in her theory of courage. She claims that personal development through passion and perseverance helps people achieve their goals.
Duckworth shared his ideas and research in his book Grit: The Passion and the Power of Perseverance . Newspaper and magazine reviewers raved about Duckworth’s book and her ideas. These have become popular all over the world.
The origin of the “grit theory”
In the summer of 2004, Angela Duckworth conducted a study of more than 1,000 young cadets from the United States Military Academy (USMA), also known as West Point. These young cadets were in their first year. This is called “beast barracks” because of how physically and professionally challenging it is.
During this seven-week training, the cadets train for 17 hours without a break. The physically demanding tests help the school to retain the best candidates as they lose hundreds after the first training. In this context, Duckworth was interested in the qualities of the cadets who determined their success (or lack thereof) during the tests.
To do that, Duckworth designed a test that measured leadership qualities, physical performance, endurance and the ability to achieve long-term goals. The combination of these qualities is what Duckworth calls ” grit “, or courage in Norwegian. The results she achieved allowed her to come up with accurate predictions that she would eventually use as a reference for her future work.
The principles of Angela Duckworth’s theory
Duckworth does not believe that education, intelligence, family or finances are the factors that determine success. While all of these things have an impact on your personal and professional career, Duckworth believes that what really matters is your character. The New York Times summed up her concept with an equation: “Talent + effort = skill. Skill + effort = achievement ”.
One of the principles in the theory is “effort counts twice”. Consequently , perseverance is the crucial factor for success. This means that everyone, regardless of the situation, can learn to develop any kind of quality as long as they try hard enough.
Angela Duckworth believes that courage is the best predictor of success, even more than IQ. This means that this theory argues that talent is created, not innate. According to the author, everyone would only give up when things get difficult if the opposite were true. Thus, any resilient and hopeful person can succeed.
On the other hand, Juan Carlos Cubeiro, an expert in leadership development, believes that there are four important ingredients for cultivating courage: interest, practice, purpose and hope.
Is it legitimate?
Unfortunately, Duckworth’s theory is similar to other theories as the theory of culture of effort. As a result, people have questioned the validity or effectiveness of the ideas. This is especially true when it comes to instilling these principles in students.
Not only that, but some dismissed her theory as classicist and racist because she only studied privileged groups of students from Ivy League schools and West Point. Thus, her attractive theory can only be applied to those who are already in privileged situations. This goes against the very basis of Duckworth’s theory, which is that anyone can succeed if they try hard enough.
