How to Create a Successful Mindset: The Science of Passion and Perseverance

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Grit is passion plus perseverance for long-term goals, and you can build it.

  Dr. Angela Duckworth, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist, MacArthur fellow and author of Grit, says it matters more than talent, intelligence or motivation alone. She describes four psychological assets that grow it: interest, practice, purpose and hope (a sense of agency).

• 02

  A growth mindset is just a theory about ability, and everyone holds one.

  If you believe ability can change with effort and experience, a setback becomes 'What can I learn here?' and you move on. A fixed mindset treats ability as unchangeable, so failure feels like a verdict. Duckworth notes you don't need to be a philosopher to hold a theory; we all do.

• 03

  Talent is the rate at which you improve.

  Rather than a mysterious gift, Duckworth defines talent as how quickly someone gets better at a particular thing. You may be slow at some skills and 'very agile' at others. Mel found that freeing, because she had always read 'talent' as something she lacked.

• 04

  Consistency is the heart of grit: do it more days than not.

  Duckworth expected gritty people to be '11 out of 10' on effort all the time. Instead, like Michael Phelps's coach Bob Bowman, she found they were consistent. They do fall off the horse, cry and doubt themselves, but they get back on. Consistency doesn't have to mean an unbroken daily streak; it means more days than not, or at least starting again the next day. Phelps reportedly trained 365 days a year for about 10 years, which she calls unusual; trainers would say rest days are good.

• 05

  Interest comes first, and others often notice it before you do.

  You can't grow passion without the seed of interest, she says. Watch where your mind goes when nothing is required of it, because 'that is where your mind lives.' Often a loved one or passerby has to point it out, and good parenting is largely noticing what your kid keeps thinking about.

• 06

  The 10,000-hour rule is widely misunderstood.

  Anders Ericsson, whom she calls 'the world expert on world experts', studied chess grandmasters, prima ballerinas, World Cup soccer players and top Sudoku players. At a German music academy, the best violinists had about 10,000 hours of practice, the next group about 7,500 and the next about 5,000. Until he died about five years ago, Ericsson insisted it was the quality of practice that mattered, not just the hours.

• 07

  Deliberate practice has three parts.

  Have a specific goal, give it complete effort and concentration, and get immediate feedback before the next attempt. Duckworth says it's psychologically costly ('it's painful') but free: 'There's no patent.' Her research with Ericsson found that people who are passionate and persevering about a long-term goal log more of these high-quality hours.

• 08

  Purpose turns a job into a calling.

  She tells the parable of three bricklayers: 'I'm laying bricks' (a job), 'I'm building a church' (a career), 'I'm building the house of God' (a calling), and says there is modern science on calling. A doorway into purpose is to write about what irritates, angers or outrages you and what you think ought to be different. That's the first step to deciding you might make the difference.

• 09

  Agency grows most from small wins.

  Duckworth draws on Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura's four drivers of self-efficacy ('I can do this if I try'): your physical state, encouragement from someone who believes in you, seeing a model who shows what's possible, and, most powerful of all, a mastery experience or small win. Olympic coaches know that an athlete on a losing streak needs a win, however small.

• 10

  Keep what you want within arm's reach and what you don't out of it.

  About half the things we don't do, she says, are simply forgotten. Psychologists measure personal space at roughly 3 feet in every direction, so put reminders inside it and push temptations like your phone outside it. Her national survey of over 20,000 (approaching 30,000) teachers is finding that the stricter a school's phone policy, the happier the educators and the more on-task the students.