Afterpage · week card
Grit
Angela Duckworth
Key ideas
- Effort counts twice.
- Passion is a top-level goal.
- Interest comes first.
- Deliberate practice.
- Purpose and hope.
The week
| Day 1 | Read the summary. Five key ideas and where the book overreaches. |
| Day 2 | Map your goal hierarchy. Write your goals on one page, arranged as a pyramid with one top-level goal and the smaller goals that serve it. Bad day: Write one sentence: “Most of what I do serves the goal of...” |
| Day 3 | Trace your interest. Write down how your interest in your main pursuit began, and one way to deepen it this week. Bad day: Write one sentence about what first made you interested in your work. |
| Day 4 | Do one deliberate practice session. Spend 20 minutes on deliberate practice: choose one specific weakness, work on it with full focus, and get feedback right away. Bad day: Name one specific weakness and do one focused attempt at it. |
| Day 5 | Connect work to purpose. Write down who benefits from your work and how, then share it with one person. Bad day: Write the name of one person who benefits from your work and how. |
| Day 6 | Rewrite one setback. Pick a recent setback and rewrite your explanation of it so it points to something you can change. Bad day: Rewrite one “I'm bad at...” as “I haven't yet...” |
| Day 7 | Set a hard-thing rule. Choose one hard thing to commit to for a fixed season, and write the conditions under which you'll allow yourself to stop. Bad day: Write your hard thing and its end date. |
Free week by email at getafterpage.com/books/grit