Grit(75)

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My daughter Lucy was still a baby when I first read Bob’s work on learned industriousness, and her sister, Amanda, was a toddler. With both girls, I soon discovered I was ill-suited to play the role Bob had in his experiments. It was difficult for me to create the necessary contingency for learning—in other words, an environment in which the acknowledged rule was If you work hard, you’ll be rewarded. If you don’t, you won’t.

Indeed, I struggled to provide the sort of feedback I knew my children needed. I found myself enthusiastically praising them no matter what they did. And this is one of the reasons extracurricular activities offer superior playing fields for grit—coaches and teachers are tasked with bringing forth grit in children who are not their own.

At the ballet class where I dropped off the girls each week, there was a terrific teacher waiting to receive them. This teacher’s passion for ballet was infectious. She was every bit as supportive as I was, and, frankly, a heck of a lot more demanding. When a student ambled in late to class, they got a stern lecture about the importance of respecting other people’s time. If a student forgot to wear their leotard that day, or left their ballet shoes at home, they sat and watched the other children for the entire class and weren’t allowed to participate. When a move was executed incorrectly, there were endless repetitions and adjustments until, at last, this teacher’s high standards were satisfied. Sometimes, these lessons were accompanied by short lectures on the history of ballet, and how each dancer is responsible for carrying on that tradition.

Harsh? I don’t think so. High standards? Absolutely.

And so it was in ballet class, more than at home, that Lucy and Amanda got to rehearse developing an interest, diligently practice things they couldn’t yet do, appreciate the beyond-the-self purpose of their efforts, and, when bad days eventually became good ones, acquire the hope to try, try again.



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In our family, we live by the Hard Thing Rule. It has three parts. The first is that everyone—including Mom and Dad—has to do a hard thing. A hard thing is something that requires daily deliberate practice. I’ve told my kids that psychological research is my hard thing, but I also practice yoga. Dad tries to get better and better at being a real estate developer; he does the same with running. My oldest daughter, Amanda, has chosen playing the piano as her hard thing. She did ballet for years, but later quit. So did Lucy.

This brings me to the second part of the Hard Thing Rule: You can quit. But you can’t quit until the season is over, the tuition payment is up, or some other “natural” stopping point has arrived. You must, at least for the interval to which you’ve committed yourself, finish whatever you begin. In other words, you can’t quit on a day when your teacher yells at you, or you lose a race, or you have to miss a sleepover because of a recital the next morning. You can’t quit on a bad day.

And, finally, the Hard Thing Rule states that you get to pick your hard thing. Nobody picks it for you because, after all, it would make no sense to do a hard thing you’re not even vaguely interested in. Even the decision to try ballet came after a discussion of various other classes my daughters could have chosen instead.

Lucy, in fact, cycled through a half-dozen hard things. She started each with enthusiasm but eventually discovered that she didn’t want to keep going with ballet, gymnastics, track, handicrafts, or piano. In the end, she landed on viola. She’s been at it for three years, during which time her interest has waxed rather than waned. Last year, she joined the school and all-city orchestras, and when I asked her recently if she wanted to switch her hard thing to something else, she looked at me like I was crazy.

Next year, Amanda will be in high school. Her sister will follow the year after. At that point, the Hard Thing Rule will change. A fourth requirement will be added: each girl must commit to at least one activity, either something new or the piano and viola they’ve already started, for at least two years.

Tyrannical? I don’t believe it is. And if Lucy’s and Amanda’s recent comments on the topic aren’t disguised apple-polishing, neither do my daughters. They’d like to grow grittier as they get older, and, like any skill, they know grit takes practice. They know they’re fortunate to have the opportunity to do so.

For parents who would like to encourage grit without obliterating their children’s capacity to choose their own path, I recommend the Hard Thing Rule.





Chapter 12


A CULTURE OF GRIT





The first football game I ever watched from beginning to end was Super Bowl XLVIII. The game took place on February 2, 2014, and pitted the Seattle Seahawks against the Denver Broncos. The Seahawks won, 43–8.

The day after their victory, Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll was interviewed by a former member of the San Francisco 49ers.

“I know when I was with the (Forty-) Niners,” the interviewer began, “you were there. . . . It meant something to be a Niner, not a football player. When you and John Schneider are looking for a player, tell me: What is that philosophy, what does it mean to be a Seahawk?”

Pete chuckled softly. “I’m not going to give it all to you, but . . .”

“Come on, man. Give it to me, Pete.”

“I will tell you that we’re looking for great competitors. That’s really where it starts. And that’s the guys that really have grit. The mindset that they’re always going to succeed, that they’ve got something to prove. They’re resilient, they’re not going to let setbacks hold them back. They’re not going to be deterred, you know, by challenges and hurdles and things. . . . It’s that attitude—we really refer to it as grit.”