The Nitty Gritty Secret of Success

And the time to teach kids this skill is when they’re young, says Rabbi Lover. “There are certain skills a child will master when he’s older, but overcoming taavos, accepting delayed gratification — that’s almost an impossible thing to teach later on. Then you’re talking about changing natures, which is a very, very hard thing to do. When kids are young, you’re building natures. That’s the time to do it. The Vilna Gaon speaks at length about building good habits when children are young.”

“The point is not to change your teva, but to use it in the best way you can,” adds Joel Pomerantz, a psychologist who practices in Yerushalayim and Beit Shemesh. “Every one of us is born with innate qualities. We don’t get to decide what they are or how much of them we have, but we can certainly work with whatever we have, and that’s really our job in life. There are going to be people born with more resilience, or with a more optimistic approach, and that’s a gift. There are people who naturally have less resilience. But that doesn’t mean parents are helpless in the face of kids who tend toward pessimism. We can use our influence and the child’s environment to develop grit, like any other behavior.”

Much of the research about building grit centers around an idea called the growth mindset. Growth mindset is the belief that basic qualities — like intelligence and ability — are not fixed traits, but can be honed, molded, and developed through hard work. Kids with this mindset are more likely to push past obstacles and keep trying until they succeed. By teaching that their ability is not static, that they can develop their talents through effort and persistence, kids learn to view themselves and their capabilities differently.

“When kids read and learn about the brain and how it changes and grows in response to challenge, they’re much more likely to persevere when they fail,” Duckworth says. “[That’s] because they don’t believe that failure is a permanent condition.”