What's grit? Authors of this article "Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals" (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) [pdf] define it right in the article's title. They add:
Grit entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress. The gritty individual approaches achievement as a marathon; his or her advantage is stamina. Whereas disappointment or boredom signals to others that it is time to change trajectory and cut losses, the gritty individual stays the course.
They begin the article with a somewhat sobering, even depressing, statement by William James:
Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental resources. . .men the world over possess amounts of resource, which only exceptional individuals push to their extremes of use.
They go on to look at whether grit is critical to success, and believe their findings suggest that indeed it is.
Want to test your grit? Here's the Grit Scale [pdf]. Read more about the Grit Scale here [pdf]. And you can participate in a Grit Study. How much grit do you have?
Note (added August 2, 2009): Another article on grit: "The truth about grit" (Boston Globe).
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