Out of all the TED talks to choose from, I chose Angela Lee Duckworth’s talk on Grit: The power of passion and perseverance. Judging from the title, this talk sounded like it was motivational and I had a feeling it would be correlating grit to something positive, so I wanted to see what it would talk about.
Towards the end of the talk, Angela brings up the concept of a growth mindset. In short, a growth mindset is the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed and that it can change with effort. I agree with the fact a growth mindset can help build grit in students. In grade 11, I read an interesting article and this was the first time I had heard of a growth mindset. Prior to reading the article, I was a firm believer of the fact that some people are just better at things and it’s pretty hard to be better than naturals, but after reading the article/study and seeing the compelling evidence based on the experiments they conducted, I had changed my mind and started to understand how something like a growth mindset could be possible and beneficial.
Although I do agree with the concept of a growth mindset and the fact that this paired with grit can have great outcomes, in the video, Angela says that talent doesn’t make you great, and talent is often unrelated or inversely related to grit. I personally feel that talent is what in fact makes people great and that it can be related to grit. My reasoning behind this is that if something comes easily to someone, they’ll likely breeze through it, and enjoy it if they are the best at it, especially if they have a competitive nature within them. Now, if others start to catch up to where they are, I feel that they will begin to work harder to become even better to stay “at the top” and remain the best at whatever it is they do. Additionally, if it’s something that they are talented in, in my opinion, it means they will be good at it and from my experience if I’m good at something, I’ll typically enjoy doing it.
In regards to how this video has made me reflect on my own choices, I feel it has given me a new perspective towards overall things. The points that were brought up were fairly well supported and convincing, and overall, I do feel that grit can help you become better at something even if you aren’t naturally good at it. In my own life, if I’m not good at something at the start, it’s fairly discouraging to me, and that becomes something I don’t want to do. A more specific example would be that when I play video games and try a new character. If I’m not immediately good or at least decent with that character, I’ll probably never play them again whereas someone I’m naturally good with the first time I’ll play repeatedly. Additionally, I’m someone who’s never been good at art, and have admired people who could make insanely cool drawings even at lower elementary grades. And throughout my entire life, I was a firm believer that art was specifically something that people were either born to be naturally talented at. But to summarize, what I’m saying here is that the video has changed my current perspective on things and in the future, maybe I’ll try new things out. Instead of simply throwing in the towel if at first I’m not good at something, perhaps I’ll persevere, have a growth mindset and keep trying until I do become good at it. And if I don’t become good at it after a lot of trying, then I’ll stop and know that I did make a sincere effort to become better at it.
I would definitely recommend this talk to a friend. I feel that there were a lot of good points made and the concepts brought up were eye opening. The talk really emphasized the fact that just because you aren’t good at something at first, it doesn’t mean you will never be good at it. I feel that a lot of people undervalue this and this is something that needs to be reinforced more, especially with students. I know that it can be extremely disappointing to come across something hard that you are not good at, but if you keep an open mind and keep trying, if one day you’re eventually good at it, that’s the most rewarding feeling ever. I think that this talk was very well done, and there was solid research into various cases where grit was measured to back up the points that were made.
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