Deborah Perkins The Significance Of Grit Essay

In an article by Deborah Perkins-Gough, titled The Significance of Grit, Perkins has a conversation with Angela Lee Duckworth, a professor from the University of Pennsylvania, about the meaning of Grit. Grit is defined as the quality that enables individuals to work hard and stick to their long term passions and goals. Throughout the article, Duckworth introduces many studies she has conducted on many different types of people. After reading through this article my perception of grit and resilience has changed and has become more defined. During high school, I was fortunate to play on the football team for 4 years where I have learned most of these concepts discussed. During those years, we went through many trials and tribulations but at the end

Once I heard the news, I started regretting my decision of joining the team because I was ashamed and in fear of failing. The next season, we started bonding more often and the coaches were constantly reminding us about grit, integrity, and resilience. To implement these ideas, our coaches would have haas meet once a week and talk about what we needed to become successful as a team. One of the phrases the coach would use is “Burn the boats.” This quote came from an old story that described an army who burned their boats before entering battle. This shows grit because these army men had to give it their all because they had absolutely nothing to lose; these men eventually won the battle and took over the empire. To enforce these concepts physically, the coaches but us through many mental tests. One of these tests were playing an unending game of tug-of-war on the field and the objective was to not quit and to not let your team down. The loser would also face a punishment of running many laps with supervision of one of our tougher coaches. These tug of war matches would last up to 45 min per game in the very hot summer