Editor’s note: This article was first published in May 2013. The reference to her “recent TED talk” concerns the 2013 talk “The key to success? Grit”.
What predicts whether we will succeed in life, in our studies, in our career or in business? Until now, various studies have tried to put IQ, talent, or even the socioeconomic background we come from in first place.
Psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth, through her research at the University of Pennsylvania, has found that none of these is what drives success. According to Duckworth, the best indicators of success are the ability to withstand stress and the ability to absorb past failures without damaging our future goals. Grit and self-discipline are qualities that, so far, have beaten IQ when we face the real world.
(Read: Are millionaires smarter than everyone else?)
In her recent TED talk, Duckworth adds that, as she was able to see for herself, her best students were not the ones with the highest IQ. They were not the smartest, nor the most talented, but the ones who worked hard and had self-discipline. In other words, self-discipline predicts academic performance more strongly than IQ.
“Our reports clearly show that there are many talented people who simply don’t follow through on their commitments, people with high IQs who give up when things get difficult.”
Outside university, life is even harder. A disciplined person is disciplined in everything, not just in their studies. Being disciplined means starting something and finishing it, or dying trying. Having grit means fighting on and on to knock down the obstacles that appear along the way. That is the only way to succeed: a high IQ won’t get us there unless we also have courage (grit) and self-discipline.
We will all fail sooner or later. Some will fall apart, while others won’t let that failure affect them or stop them from carrying on. That is life, and that is the road to success.
Further reading
Featured image: GRuban, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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