Growing up, I found myself switching from activity to activity, because my interest died out really quickly. In Chinese, my father called it 五分钟热度, which literally means "five-minute heat". Although exploration is important, I didn't stick to something long-term, and this book truly opened my eyes.
Content: Through this book, Dr Duckworth spoke of her journey to seek answers on the importance of grit, how grit can be nurtured, and how one can develop grit from within. While hard work and intelligence are important, grit is a measure of how much discomfort or pain one can go through before choosing to give up. This measure also provides insights into our future success in our careers.
Estimated reading time needed: 12-15h but I recommend taking your time to do so. Relate the info to your experiences if you can and reflect, it will help greatly.
Key takeaways:
1) Before hard work comes play, to gain the initial spark of interest by having fun
2) A key part of developing grit is after the initial phase of discovery - a period of proactive interest development
3) High-level goals should be written in ink once you've got that figured out, and low-level goals should be written in pencil that can be adjusted or removed
4) Simply telling others they can overcome adversity is insufficient. To grow grit, we need to experience adversity, have a growth mindset and tell ourselves we can overcome it, and persevere to overcome it
5) The people around you are important - so are their support and encouragement
6) A team's culture has an effect on the individual - becoming great may be a result of joining a great team
7) Aside from grit, there is also character. Character is plural
Recommendation: This is one of the books that reached the peak of my "Maslow's hierarchy" for reading. Not only does it have a well-thought-out structure with great arguments and evidence, it is also relatable to me as I think about my own experiences and how I've developed (and can develop) grit. If you'd like to do well in something but aren't sure how, read this.
