The belief that grit will make you great gained popularity a decade ago with the pioneering research of University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth. But she now has something else to consider: Your situation.
"Grit is one thing; a great situation is another – and fully realizing your potential requires both," she writes in her new book Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best.
In the thick of pursuing a goal, it's easy to neglect the immense power of your situation. Effort is not always sufficient. A successful situation will amplify your effort while a losing situation diminishes it.
That means you need situational awareness, to understand the role being played by other factors such as people and the culture of the organization, city or country you are within. And you also need situational agency: You have choices and must make them because circumstances are never entirely beyond your control.
Her change in focus comes out of her intense curiosity about how we achieve. Before, with the 2016 book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, she was concerned with what goes on inside the minds of high achievers. Now she has been studying the influence of everything and everyone around them.
"It's true that what we do is influenced by what we think – but it's equally true that what we think is, in turn, influenced by where we are. Like it or not, our every thought and action is profoundly shaped by our peers and mentors, by our culture and even by the objects in our personal space," she says.
Here's the linkage: Your situation provokes thoughts. In turn, your thoughts – based on the brain's interpretation of reality – provoke a response to the situation. Now you may feel an emotion. We often assume that our feelings lead to our thoughts but it's the other way around.
That means to change your emotions – to change your behaviour and indeed to change yourself – you must begin by changing your situation. Accepting the situation as an unalterable given and depending on willpower to improve that situation won't work, she argues.
"A challenging and supportive situation encourages positive thoughts, which lead you – without having to force yourself – to put forth your best effort. There are no shortcuts to excellence, but getting situated makes doing hard things easier," she writes.
As well, she notes, your situation can influence your personality. Your personality has range. In certain situations, for example, she is an optimist while in others a pessimist. "You don't have a single identity but several, and the specific triggers that elicit your different selves are embedded in the immediate situation: The people you're with and the physical place you're in at the moment," she says.
Getting situated for the life you want moves you from near to far, from concrete to abstract, and from what you can change immediately to what may take weeks, months or years to figure out. It comes with risk and fear. But if your current situation is failing you, grit won't be enough.