During the past cross country season, I loaned a copy of Angela Duckworth’s Grit to one of the boys. When he brought it back, he wanted to talk about one part in particular: The Hard Thing Rule. I was extremely excited to talk about this rule! The Hard Thing Rule matters…and it is not the first idea from Dr. Duckworth’s Grit book that most people choose to discuss.
Angela Duckworth’s Hard Thing Rule is part of how Angela raises her own children. The Hard Thing Rule for the Duckworth family is:
- Everyone (including mom and dad) has to be doing a hard thing. A hard thing is something that requires daily, deliberate practice.
- You can quit–but you can’t quit until the season is over, the tuition payment is up, or some other ‘natural’ stopping point. You must finish what you begin. You can’t quit because a teacher yells at you, you lose a race, you have to miss a sleepover because of a commitment. You can’t quit on a bad day.
- You get to pick your own hard thing.
Angela Duckworth is the world’s leading expert on grit, and if the Hard Thing Rule is a way to help her own children learn and internalize grit, this Rule must mean a lot to her. The Hard Thing rule is personal for Dr. Duckworth. And because Angela is personally important to me, as a mentor and a friend, well, the Hard Thing Rule will mean something to me, too.
What interested the boy who read the book was whether or not I agreed with Dr. Duckworth–that it was not OK to quit a team in the middle of the season. (This boy did not quit, by the way–it never occurred to him. He was more interested in understanding why Angela–and I–don’t think it is a good idea to quit in the middle of a season). We had a good discussion. As people who know me can imagine, I can get a little excited and emotional about discussions like this about grit and grit-adjacent topics. These things matter a lot to me, increasing grit is at the top of my list of goals with my kids and teams. So I wanted to take some time to write for all of my athletes, why I think the Hard Thing Rule matters. (Note: I am not sure Angela Duckworth would 100% agree with what I am writing here–this is my take on the Hard Thing Rule and why it matters. Remember, though, this is Angela’s rule and she will have different takes and reasons and methods. What follows is your coach talking, not Angela expanding. I encourage you to apply to Penn and take Angela’s Grit Lab class to learn from the master!)
Quitting Gets Easier
Joining a team should not be a casual decision. When you join a team, I believe you are making a commitment to your teammates to try your best during that season. For three months, we are all sharing a common cause–to try to be the best versions of ourselves possible during this season, to try to improve as much as we can both individually and as a group. The strength of the team and the strength of the individual is interconnected. If one person is not improving as much as they had hoped, or the improvement is not coming as fast or as easily as imagined, or the person does not earn the rank they had planned, then each person can still make the team stronger by being at practice every day and continuing to try. And the team gives something back by contributing energy, and support, and workout partners, and inspiration so that the individuals can fight through flat spots and low points so it is more likely that individuals achieve their goals in the longer run.
When we join a team, whether we consciously think about it or not, we are making a commitment to our teammates. Joining a team should not be a casual act.
Quitting becomes easier the more you do it. The first time you decide to quit something in the middle, and the world doesn’t end, the easier it is to quit the next time. After you step off the track in the middle of a race for the first time, the more prominent the doubts and temptations are going to be in your mind in the future. The louder the little voice in your head is going to get the next time things get hard. And, you effect your teammates also. If someone else is struggling and having doubts, seeing someone quitting can make raises the idea that ‘maybe I can quit, too’.
But the opposite is also true. Each time you hang in there and get through something hard, you are developing your grit muscles. Your teammates can be inspired by seeing your efforts in the face of struggles even more than in your successes. In your life you are going to face other hard things–hard things that are more important to your long term success in college or your career than a season of cross country. The grit, the resiliency, that is developed by not quitting during a hard moment in cross will help you get through the hard times later. You are vaccinating yourself against the giving up virus, you are building your resistance to the little voice in your head that wants you to quit.
Is Grit The Only Thing That Matters?
Grit is not the only character trait that matters. I’m not saying that grit is the only thing you need to be successful in your life. I’m also not sure that it is productive to try to rank-order character strengths; does it really matter to try to determine whether it is more important to have lots of grit, or gratitude, or a growth mindset, or to be flexible, or to be honest? All these traits matter, and we should try to develop them all.
What I do believe about grit, and a reason I emphasize grit so much, is that I believe grit helps make other traits stronger. Grit helps us achieve the full expression of our other character traits. For example:
- Kindness matters as a character trait. Benefits go to both the recipient and the giver of a kind act. Small, thoughtful acts—like helping, sharing, listening, or teaching—can change both how you are perceived and how you see yourself. Making a small sacrifice to be kind to others, like taking a few minutes to help clean up after an activity, or listening to a story even if you are not in the mood for it, can strengthen social relationships. Your choices have an impact and that you can contribute to other people’s happiness–and you can make friends. And even when thinking about kindness, grit is important. A person that consistently performs kind acts is going to have a different reputation than someone who performs a kind act randomly, when things are going well or if they are in the mood. If you develop a habit of doing little kind things for others, even when you might not be in the mood or when you are having a tough moment, isn’t that also being resilient and gritty as well as kind?
- Being adaptable is important. The world is a complex place that changes often, so we need to adapt. But can we adapt to new situations without being resilient? When we go to college and are suddenly in a new situation, we might be overwhelmed. To fit in to our new environment, it helps to be adaptable and try new things…we might join new clubs, or sit down with people we don’t know at lunch time, or switch focus from how intimidating the college professors can be and instead focus on the excitement of learning new things. Yet, being adaptable is only part of solution. A big part is having the resilience and persistence to experiment with new approaches to try new things.
- Honesty matters. Every time we leave our backpack full of our computers and phones and wallets on the track when we leave for a run, or make a deposit in a bank account, or hang our jacket on a chair in a restaurant before we walk to the counter to order, we are trusting that others are going to be honest. And yet, while you can convince yourself that a small lie does not matter, cheating is a slippery slope: dishonesty breeds more dishonesty. The opposite is also true: each time we resist telling a little lies that could make a situation easier, that breeds more honesty. Isn’t resisting telling a lie, again and again until it gets easier, a gritty act?
And on and on. Grit helps you express other valuable character traits.
I believe that grit is not only about digging in and achieving. Yes, grit is important when you are learning to be really good at mathematics, or mastering a foreign language, or writing a book, or becoming an attorney, or building a company, or trying to set a new personal record at Crystal. You do need to be gritty and resilient so that you don’t give up on a long, hard task after a particularly tough stretch. But grit is also important if you want to be a reliable friend, or develop a reputation for honesty, or consistently kind, or learn to fit in at a new school with lots of people that are from different backgrounds that you just don’t understand (yet).
Think about your best friends, the ones you really rely upon. Your best friends are not only nice to you, and considerate of your feelings, when it’s convenient for them and when they are in the mood to be pleasant. Your very best friends are considerate of your feelings even when they are having a tough day. You know that your best friends are going to be there when you need them, not just when they need you. Isn’t reliability and dependability from your friends another form of resilience and grit?
And that is part of why I think Angela Duckworth’s Hard Thing Rule is great–for young people, and for not-so-young people. The more we get in the habit of finishing what we started, the easier it is to finish things. The little voice in our head that says ‘you can just quit’ fades away and becomes inaudible, or at least easy to brush away. Showing up every day ready to work hard becomes a habit, not a daily decision to fret about. Showing up for your friends when they need you is just something you do, not a special effort. Being kind becomes a habit, honesty is a reflex, being creative in the face of a challenge is gritty and also a part of your playbook; it becomes a habit to think that we can get through the tough parts of the toughest challenge.
We can still quit, but we quit after we have fulfilled our commitments and given our best efforts.
Angela came up with the Hard Thing Rule for her family. And since you are my kids, and I’d like you to adopt the Hard Thing Rule for yourselves, too. It’s the best way I can think of to start the New Year, and this article and the thoughts behind it are the best present I can think of right now.
Happy New Year, everyone!
PS Christmas Relays
One last note…a big fist bump to Ellie Hsu, Karena Lai, Jasmine Varma, Vivian Lau, Andrew Cole, Alex Nguyen, Ari Rajaram, Denny Dong and…well I may have missed someone…who ran in the Christmas Relays earlier this month (and followed that up with noodles, dumplings, steamed buns and tarts from a San Francisco bakery!). I have to say, in my life, some of the memorable little events were going and running a race with my running partners and following that up with eating as much as I could fit on a plate! We travelled locally and as far as Rome to go run together and have fun after (food-related fun is quite common). These are great trips! So…for the MVXC runners who headed up to SF before Christmas to run the relay, I hope this is the start of a lifelong habit. I’m proud of the results (a team first and a second place finish! plus the boys out kicked the team of one of my running partner). And I’m a little jealous of the noodles.
