The Grit Scale
A validated self-assessment measuring your passion and perseverance for long-term goals
The Grit Scale is a psychometrically validated questionnaire that measures two components of grit: consistency of interests (passion) and perseverance of effort. Half the questions assess how stable your interests remain over time, asking whether you tend to become obsessed with ideas briefly before losing interest. The other half assess perseverance, asking whether you overcome setbacks, finish what you begin, and maintain effort on projects that take months or longer.
Duckworth developed the scale by translating her interview notes from conversations with high achievers into testable questions. The resulting instrument has been validated across diverse populations including West Point cadets, National Spelling Bee contestants, salespeople, Chicago public school students, Green Berets, and Ivy League undergraduates. In every context, higher grit scores predicted meaningful outcomes like surviving Beast Barracks, staying employed, graduating high school, and advancing further in spelling competitions.
Critically, grit scores are independent of talent measures. At West Point, the Whole Candidate Score (a comprehensive talent metric) bore no relationship to grit. At an Ivy League school, SAT scores and grit were slightly inversely correlated. The scale reveals that our potential is one thing and what we do with it is quite another.
- Grit has two components: consistency of interests (passion) and perseverance of effort
- Grit is independent of talent — talented people are not necessarily grittier
- Grit predicts retention and success across military, educational, and professional contexts
- Grit scores change over the lifespan — older adults tend to score higher
- The scale measures direction (passion) as much as intensity (perseverance)
- Both halves matter: perseverance without passion leads to burnout, passion without perseverance leads to dilettantism
- Take the Grit Scale honestlyAnswer each question based on how you actually are, not how you wish to be. The scale includes items about how often your interests change, whether you finish what you begin, and whether setbacks discourage you. Score yourself on a 1-5 scale for each item.
- Calculate your overall grit score and subscale scoresAverage all items for your overall grit score. Then separately average the passion items and the perseverance items. Many people discover a significant gap between their two subscales, which reveals where to focus development efforts.
- Diagnose your weaker dimensionIf your passion score is lower, you may lack a clear long-term direction or tend to switch interests frequently. If your perseverance score is lower, you may have direction but struggle with follow-through when things get difficult. Each requires a different growth strategy.
- Reassess periodicallyRetake the scale every six to twelve months. Grit is not fixed — it changes with experience, maturity, and deliberate cultivation. Track your trajectory over time rather than treating any single score as definitive.
In 2004, 1,218 cadets took the Grit Scale on their second day at West Point. Over the next seven weeks of the grueling Beast Barracks training, 71 cadets dropped out. The Whole Candidate Score — West Point's comprehensive talent metric including SAT scores, class rank, leadership ratings, and physical fitness — failed to predict who would quit. Grit scores, however, were an astoundingly reliable predictor.
Duckworth created the scale during her second year of graduate school after spending months interviewing leaders across business, art, athletics, journalism, academia, medicine, and law. She noticed two universal commonalities: resilience and hardworking behavior (perseverance), combined with a deep, enduring sense of direction (passion). She wrote questions that captured these descriptions, sometimes verbatim, and validated the scale at West Point in July 2004 when 1,218 cadets completed it on the second day of Beast Barracks.