Pursuing True 'Grit,' and What It Can Actually Do for Your Life

Sure, you graduated from an Ivy League school with a 4.0 GPA, and haven’t had an issue putting together a stunning résumé.

But do you truly have the “grit” to succeed in life?

While psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth may have given her now-famous TED talk on the topic of grit with high school students in mind—defined to the Wall Street Journal as “the tendency to pursue long-term goals with passion and persistence”—the same rules apply to other fields. To her point, grit is something beyond talent or IQ or conscientiousness—all commonly cited aspects of top-notch employees. (Duckworth, the bestselling author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, was the recipient of a MacArthur Genius grant.)

Duckworth also created what she’s calling the “Grit Scale,” a 10-question test that gauges just how well someone is likely to perform at a given task based on how they passionately persist on completing it.

And now Duckworth’s looking to “advance the science and the practice of character development,” as she told the Journal, through her own nonprofit, the Character Lab. (She co-founded it with the founder of charter school behemoth, the KIPP schools.)

For those wondering how well you’d score on the Grit Scale, take the test here.