Persistence.
Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
Can it be as easy as Lewis Carroll wrote, 150 years ago?
How about the intensity of actor Will Smith?
“The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be outworked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things — you got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there’s two things: You’re getting off first, or I’m going to die. It’s really that simple.” — quoted by Angela Duckworth & Lauren Eskreis-Winkler
Angela Lee Duckworth, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, studies grit, which is defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. As Duckworth argues in her research (and explains nicely in this TED talk), psychology has done a better job of identifying components of talent (creativity, intellectual skills, athleticism, etc.) than understanding how individuals cultivate and release these abilities. That perseverance and persistence are key factors is not groundbreaking news. But Duckworth and other researchers have helped pinpoint some of the behavioral mechanisms that undergird grit.
One that is particularly important is deliberate practice, which has been studied in depth over the last twenty years in psychology. Deliberate practice has largely been misrepresented in the mainstream, however, with simplistic claims that one needs 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert. For example, in his bestselling Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell writes that “researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.” What Gladwell mostly ignores is the type of practice required to reach excellence. Deliberate practice involves difficult, draining, ego-defeating training in which you work on your weaknesses over and over, getting critical feedback on your performance from others. It’s not super fun. I have trained, for example, well over 10,000 hours in the pool. But I’m no expert. Too many of my training sessions have involved “sloppy yards,” in which I am simply completing a workout without enough intentionality. What sets the elite athletes apart from me and other good (but not excellent) swimmers is the grit that it takes to engage in deliberate practice.
During my undergraduate years, I was classmates with Tommy Amaker (now head basketball coach at Harvard). I admired how hard he seemed to work on the court. He was skinny and not particularly strong or tall, but was a persistently hard worker. Amaker made it his goal to be a top defender on the ball, hounding opposing point guards. He is third all time in steals for Duke and started all 138 games he played in. In describing practices, Amaker said, “Don’t mistake routine for commitment.” Just showing up is never enough. Being ready and willing to work on one’s weaknesses over and over, ad nauseam — this is deliberate practice.
One reason that deliberate practice is so difficult is that it takes intense concentration and focus. Many experts report that they only devote a few hours a day, typically in the morning, for their most demanding mental activities. Further, we must stay with a goal/task even while many other distractions are pulling at us. We are wired to look for novelty in our environment. Dopamine, for example, is more than just a pleasure-inducing neurohormone. It really is connected to wanting, seeking, and unpredictability — rewarding us for looking for new experiences or information. (“When will someone “like” my most recent fb post? or retweet me?”)
Sticking with a task — especially a repetitive, difficult one — takes significant self-control. In her TED talk, Duckworth describes a study conducted by Catharine Cox in the 1920s. After reading the biographies of 300 geniuses, Cox concluded that there were two common factors in their trajectory towards excellence and genius. These individuals had a tendency not to abandon tasks:
a) from mere changeability (simply looking for novelty or something “fresh”), &
b) in the face of obstacles. They persevered.
Not abandoning or switching tasks may be even harder to achieve these days when the options for distraction and novelty are ubiquitous and instant. It would be good to remember the advice of Robert Fulghum, who wrote All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. “The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence,” said Fulghum. “The grass is greenest where it is watered…. Tend the grass wherever you are.”
This is true in athletics, in parenting, and in just about anything I can think of. Recognize that our brains may not be wired to persist as much as we would hope, but that training can help overcome this.
Oh, and remind me not to have a treadmill endurance contest with Will Smith.