That has been the million dollar questions since the beginning of time. Now Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania might have the answer.
Let go back in time and look what was thought to be the common denominator for success. Intelligence was thought to be that denominator. So we looked at the brightest to be the most successful.
Now back to Angela, she tested cadets at West Point, the elite military academy. What she found is that in the class of 2008, 5% of the cadets dropped out after the grueling first summer. Angela had a questionnaire that the cadets took and found out it was a good predictor of cadets that had the right stuff to survive.
Angela became interested in grit after tracking the careers of her classmates form Harvard. The most successful she found are the ones that identified a goal early on and stuck with it, rather than equally smart folks who flitted from one thing to another. “Higher level of achievement requires a certain single mindedness” she says.
Here is one definition of grit. Firmness of mind or spirit: unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger. That sounds about what Angela was talking out. I look at grit as the ability for a person to have a long term focus on something that they want to achieve.
After reading about Angela’s finding I took a little look at myself and found that I had one compelling goal in life and that is to be a better person tomorrow than I am today. You might call this continual self development. In all my years I have not wavered from improving myself daily. Some days the improvements may be very small and other days I might make a quantum leap forward, but each day I am moving ahead to bettering myself.
I am looking forward to seeing more of Angela’s research and when I do I’ll share it with you.
Happiness with Wealth to you
http://www.happineswithwealth.com
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Podcast: http://tinyurl.com/cqbdem
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