12-11-2018

A.P English Language and Arts

The Essential Ingredient To Success

In life, grit is a key factor for success in life. Grit is a mindset made for not giving up. It

gives us the power to stay and push through hard times and to stay dedicated to achieving

success at all times. At the same time, we need a belief that failures and setbacks are just learning

lessons to catapult ourselves forward

According to Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania who

explains the concept of grit in terms of perseverance, she believes only perseverance will lead to

high achievement. Someone who achieves the highest never believes that they will ever reach

their goals, they are always striving for more. Duckworth states that they are the exact opposite

of complacent, continuously unsatisfied. An individual with true grit has enduring passion,

he/she push through pain and frustration, giving up is simply not an option for them.

I connect with grit since its always there for me especially in my hardest times. Even

when I'm about to give up on something grit is there to push me forward and to overcome

obstacles that I come across in life. Without grit in my life, I wouldn't have been able to

accomplish the majority of things I've achieved so far. Grit is the reason for the person I've

become so far in life, I'm always achieving the things I want which makes me happy.

The reason why I connect to grit is that there was once a time where I was performing

poorly in my art class for I wasn't too happy about my grade which also made me feel

pessimistic towards the other art pieces that I had to draw. The same day that I had gotten back

my grade my mother had asked me about it and I had informed her about the C grade I had
received. My mom could tell that I was really upset so she went on about telling me that this bad

grade should help to build my character more and develop grit instead of being upset. She

explained to me that grit meant maintaining the hope and vision to change even under the most

challenging circumstances towards anything in life not only in school.

Therefore grit has taught me to never give up no matter how difficult the situation is and

to always move forward when wanting to achieve what I want. Grit has also taught me that to

achieve big goals its easier by dividing them into smaller, more manageable ones. This makes

our goals less intimidating, more realistic and keeps us on track.

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