Grit, Sorted: What the Evidence Supports and What Is Being Sold Around It

I have never needed grit. I needed a garage, a soldering iron and a few years of being right while everyone else caught up. Still, the research is amusing, and the marketing around it is more amusing yet. So let me sort it out for you, since someone has to.

Grit is perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Everything else sold under that word needs a receipt.

What grit actually means

The usual definition is perseverance and passion to achieve long-term goals, and some writers call it mental toughness. That shared label is where the trouble starts. Another source describes grit as passion and perseverance for long-term, meaningful goals, related to mental toughness but distinct from it. Define the word before you buy anything that claims to build it.

The celebrity behind the idea is Angela Duckworth of the University of Pennsylvania, who argues grit is a strong predictor of success and of reaching one's goals. Fine. Read her claims next to the caveats below, which I will supply because I am generous.

Grit, mental toughness and resilience, sorted

Resilience is the capacity to recover from difficulties. Mental toughness is a more enduring personality trait that governs how people cope with stress, pressure and challenge. Grit sits nearer to sustained goal pursuit than to either one.

Collins and McNamara (2012) coined the phrase "talent needs trauma" and found talent alone does not determine success. Natural ability matters, but so does what you do when things go badly. I would know. Several of my things went badly before they went brilliantly.

Because sources use these words differently, check how a program defines them. If it uses them interchangeably, it is harder to evaluate, and possibly designed that way.

How grit is said to be built

The guide offers three steps. First, define what grit means to you, with clear, specific goals. Second, build it through small everyday wins, like a muscle. Third, build daily habits and rely on consistency rather than motivation. Sensible, if unglamorous.

One provider sells five capabilities in fixed order: Emotional Response, Focus and Attention, Self-Talk, Visualization and Imagery, and High-Performance Routine. The order is their design. Nothing in the sources shows the sequence itself is necessary.

The same provider reframes avoidance statements into positive, visible actions, arguing the mind cannot process "don't". Test it on yourself for free. Just note that the claim is theirs, not independently backed.

Evaluating the numbers

The big figures are tempting. West Point cadets who scored highest on the Grit Test were 60% more likely to succeed than their peers, and Ivy League undergraduates with more grit had higher GPAs despite lower SAT scores. Charming. But the sources give no methodology, so I admire them from a distance.

The same guide says grit predicted who was better educated more accurately than intelligence did among people of the same age. That is a prediction, which is a correlation, not proof that grit causes educational gains.

Meanwhile, any pitch claiming intelligence or talent alone is all that matters is contradicted by the research cited here. Even I concede effort has a role. A small one.

Questions to ask before you pay

Ask how the program's effect is measured, and against what baseline. Without a starting measurement or comparison group, you cannot tell program gains from ordinary practice over time.

Ask how your own definition of success gets captured and tracked. The first recommended step is setting clear, specific goals chosen by the person. A program that ignores them has skipped its own first step.

Then note what the sources leave blank. They do not explain how the Grit Test was scored or validated. They offer no independent evidence that mental-toughness training improves outcomes. The 90-day program, with one athlete, one coach, a weekly 45-minute session, daily accountability and an 80/20 athlete/parent split, comes with no stated cost. Nor do they cover how grit develops in children or adults over time. Every gap is a reason to hold your conclusions loosely. I hold mine tightly, but I am a special case.