The dictionary definition of grit
Merriam-Webster defines grit, in the personal-trait sense, as "firmness of character; indomitable spirit." That is a useful starting point, but it is also vague enough to cover almost any form of toughness. It does not tell you what separates grit from plain stubbornness, or from persistence, or from just showing up on a bad day. For that, you need to look at how the term has actually been studied.
The real distinction: grit is persistence plus passion, aimed at one goal
Psychologist Angela Duckworth gave the term a precise definition in her 2007 paper "Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals," published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Her definition has two parts. The first is perseverance of effort, which is close to what most people mean by persistence. The second is consistency of interest, meaning your passion for the goal does not drift from year to year. Duckworth’s point is that grit requires both, sustained toward a single overarching goal over a long time horizon, not just continued effort on whatever task is in front of you today. That second part, the consistency of interest over years toward one goal, is what separates grit from everyday persistence.
A concrete example: retrying an API call is not grit
Say a system persistently retries a failed API call until it goes through. That is persistence. It is a repeated, in-the-moment effort to overcome a single obstacle, and it says nothing about a multi-year goal or a consistent passion. Now say a founder stays committed to building one company for a decade, through pivots, funding gaps, and setbacks, without losing interest in the underlying mission. That is grit, by Duckworth’s definition, because it combines sustained effort with sustained passion for one long-term goal. Both traits matter. They are just not the same trait, and conflating them makes the word grit less useful.
Why we still named the company Persistence
Given that distinction, Persistence was the more accurate name for what we build. Grit describes a person’s decade-long relationship with one goal. Persistence describes something narrower and more universal: not giving up on a single delayed call, a single unanswered ping, a single retry. Every interaction our voice AI agents handle is its own small act of persistence, whether or not it adds up to some grand multi-year ambition. We wrote more about that reasoning in Persistence = Persistence AI, which covers how we landed on the name itself.
Key takeaways
- Merriam-Webster defines grit as "firmness of character; indomitable spirit."
- Psychologist Angela Duckworth’s 2007 research defines grit more narrowly: perseverance combined with consistency of interest, sustained toward one long-term goal, often over years.
- Persistence is broader. You can be persistent about a single retry or a single follow-up without it being grit.
- That broader, moment-by-moment meaning is why we named our company Persistence, not Grit.
