I have a problem with grit, and I don’t mean the concept of the word, but how it is often misconstrued and used in a negative way. Grit is an idea Angela Duckworth presented in her book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Her research showed that grit is a key contributor to student success in all areas. For her, grit refers to someone's ability to persist and try again after failure and setbacks, and more specifically, as the book title suggests, it is a combination of passion and perseverance over a long period of time. Grit has long been a buzz word in the education world but in my opinion it has had some negative effects on students.
I have no doubt in my mind that my goals can be achieved if I show “grit”. It wasn’t always like that though. When I run, I run with every ounce of energy I can summon and more (especially when I’m chasing a personal best during my races or doing high intensity interval runs), no matter how fatigued I am or how much pain I’m in. I do that consistently in my training and it has become a part of my routine. I used to, and sometimes still do, say some pretty mean things to myself if I missed a run or if I missed a target during a run. It took a huge toll on me mentally as I was ramping up training, and it was especially hard when I developed achilles bursitis in my left foot. My inner critic was relentless and unyielding and he was someone I wouldn’t have had to deal with if I hadn’t started running.
Running uncovered a large part of me that would have otherwise been left untouched. It interrupted and challenged my line of thinking and it was presenting itself in unhealthy ways, such as behaviours of indifference and complacency. This was the same line of thinking that kept me from trying new things because I didn’t think I was good enough or it was too risky. Running gave me permission to sit in discomfort and enabled me to understand my psyche and the past experiences that make up my personality. Runners are no strangers to grit and I don’t think I know any runner who hasn’t shown grit or knows exactly what being gritty feels like. To me, grit is taking the extra step when your legs feel like lead. It is that extra rep you didn’t think you could do. It’s pushing past your current abilities in order to achieve growth. I learned a lot about grit as I started running and I think I showed my fair share of it!
I do not deny that grit is essential for success. However, as I alluded to earlier, I have some problems with it:
Some people use grit synonymously with not giving up
It encourages burnout for people who see rest as weakness
Some people use grit synonymously with not giving up
Learning is hard, and do you know what makes it even harder? Learning something that you don’t have much interest in! As an adult, I would not think twice about walking out of a class in, say, window fashion, and if you were to tell me that it was a mandatory class, I’d probably go berserk. But that doesn’t mean I lack grit. It means I set boundaries for what I want to learn, and that does not include window fashion. An important distinction between grit and not giving up is that grit allows you to set a boundary for what you deem important to focus your energy on, and not giving up doesn’t. Perseverance without passion isn’t grit. It could really just be illogical, hard-headed stubbornness, without the flexibility to rethink a problem. When we use grit synonymously with not giving up, we are labelling ourselves and sometimes others a negative personality trait that may be tied to self-worth and this could have a detrimental impact on how we might approach problems.
I’ll explain it in a school setting as an example, but let me start with a disclaimer that while I do not think all schools or all teachers use grit in a negative way, I do see the trend in the misunderstanding and misuse of the term that can be detrimental to students. Schools try to prioritise making students feel safe and comfortable, but they actually end up shifting the focus and try to make learning safe and comfortable. It is a nuanced difference in language, and it is impactful. Making learning safe and comfortable prevents students from dealing with tough feedback. I know from experience that nothing about learning is comfortable; it is one of the most vulnerable and courageous things we ask our students to do. The conditions of learning are somewhat counterintuitive and the discomfort of piecing together information for the first time can be exhausting, so to make learning comfortable is rather difficult, doesn’t really make sense, and can end up being detrimental to students.
Perseverance without passion isn’t grit.
Now we introduce the latest educational buzzword. Grit: a mythical, one-size-fits-all trait that’s expected to lead to student success. According to many educators, students seem to be lacking it and deem this lack of grit a character trait. Once students see this as a trait within themselves, it can be hard to change. Many believe that to develop grit, we must face the discomfort of failure and reflect, regroup, and give it another go … on repeat. Eager students might jump on that idea and try to stretch their abilities, but I fear that these students are also the same ones who, in the name of grit, become people pleasers. In the future, these students will likely run into problems of managing and meeting expectations (of themselves and from others). Their core beliefs revolve around not giving up so they don’t let others down, which isn’t conducive to discovering and developing their passion. I also see some students who make the decision to step away from learning about something they're not interested in, and they are labelled as not gritty. They are at risk of feeling the shame associated with giving up, even when it’s giving up something in which they are truly uninterested.
It seems like all the important and meaningful educational ideas are falling flat and backfiring. If we continually praise students who complete and perfect their mundane work, we are setting students up for toxic work habits. Additionally, if we label students as lacking grit if they don’t want to try again, some of them may accept the lack of grit as a key part of their personality, where in reality they just didn’t want to do work they’re not interested in. I’m not saying the students should be able to choose whether they do their work or not, but I am saying that we can’t falsely associate a lack of grit with giving up. This is a lesson we can and should apply to all people of all ages. If you choose not to pursue a path that doesn’t lead you to or encompass your passions, you do not lack grit! In fact, you are showing grit by making tough decisions and keeping yourself on track to living the life you want.
It encourages burnout for people who see rest as weakness
As a musician, grit can look like rehearsing and practising for hours locked in a practise room, or putting in the time to play long tones and scales with a metronome. It is practising the same passage over and over, tweaking it little by little, until it is as close to your musical interpretation as possible, which is a never-ending task. The moving target of perfectionism as a musician deserves a post of its own! In performance, to show grace, and be content with your achievements, and know that there is room for improvement were hard things for me to balance. Okay, let’s be real. It was never balanced because I was never content with my playing!
Musicians are stereotypically filled with passion. Pair that with perseverance and, in theory, you have grit, a key ingredient for success. So why do so many musicians stop playing? For me, it was a shift in values from enjoyment to perfectionism. What began as a practise and the satisfaction of getting better ended up being the neverending chase for perfection. Every time I made a mistake while playing, I would have the gritty attitude of attempting to play it again and again. Resting or taking breaks was unacceptable; to me, it meant that I was giving up on my immediate task and that was not an option. This can be a side effect of chasing grit: when you are passionate about something and gritting along, you grit so hard you don’t realize your values have shifted and you’re not leaning towards passion anymore.
Music itself is a paradox to me. As I get older, making music gets easier and harder at the same time. Life experience allows me to interpret music in a more nuanced way, which opens up space for a whole new level of difficulty in playing. On the other hand, life experience also allows me to forgive myself for not playing exactly the way I would like to sound. After taking a break from playing, I can say that I now enjoy playing for playing’s sake. The insidious shift to perfection isn’t uncommon for musicians. We lock ourselves in a practise room and focus on getting it right. In many cases, musicians burnout or quit because they were not taught to grit with caution. This is also the case with many people outside the musical industry! To everyone who is experiencing this I say: grit with caution.
This can be a side effect of chasing grit…you grit so hard you don’t realize your values have shifted.
To grit with caution takes mindfulness (another word that is SUPER important to me, but often misused), awareness, and self-reflection. It is to persist in your passion over a long period of time and check in with yourself from time to time to ensure you are putting your 110% in for the right reasons. When I began to run, I almost fell into the same trap I did as a musician. I found I was being unnecessarily hard on myself if I missed a run I had planned. I was very regimented and set on sticking to a training plan, and I never wanted to sway from it. When I inevitably missed a run (because life happens), I would re-jig the plan to make sure I had all the different components adjusted to my needs. It was turning into an obsessive and unhealthy relationship with running. Having had my experiences as a musician, I was able to recognize the pattern and reevaluate my values and goals in running. I now understand and have the flexibility to miss a run and know that in the grand scheme of my training plan I will be able to achieve the goals that I set for myself. I’m not saying I’m an expert at grit, I’m saying grit is more than perseverance and passion. It takes self-reflection and self-awareness.
Grit is something that I wholeheartedly believe in and I know it’s a factor in success. But unfortunately it is also something that is misunderstood and can be misguiding. It is a deceivingly simple concept whose meaning is sometimes boiled down to not giving up, which completely undermines the core idea of grit. I invite you to consider something you’ve been working on that requires grit and reevaluate how you’ve been applying the concept. How might you reframe your approach to what you’ve been working on in a way that is more encouraging and positive, bringing passion to your task? And remember – always grit with caution!
Gotta run!