Believing you can get better is nice. But according to a new Norwegian study, sticking with things and actually caring about them may matter even more for how good your life feels. In a survey of 585 adults, grit and passion were tied to meaning, flourishing and that “in the zone” feeling across the board, while a growth mindset showed up for just one of the three.
The research, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), is one of the few to look at grit and growth mindset side by side with passion, and to measure several kinds of well-being at once. Here’s what the researchers found, what it doesn’t prove, and how to build the right kind of grit without running yourself into burnout.
What the NTNU Study Found
The paper, “Motivation and well-being: exploring the relationships,” was published in the journal Frontiers in Education by NTNU psychology professor Hermundur Sigmundsson and Håvard Lorås of NTNU’s Department of Teacher Education. NTNU publicized it in September 2026.
The team surveyed 585 Norwegian adults (363 women and 222 men, average age about 33). Everyone rated themselves on three motivational traits:
- Grit: perseverance toward long-term goals, especially when progress gets hard
- Growth mindset: the belief that your abilities can be developed through effort and learning
- Passion: a strong drive and love for what you’re working toward
They also measured three pieces of what they called “holistic well-being”: flow proneness (how often you get fully absorbed in what you’re doing), flourishing (a broad sense of thriving), and meaning in life.
“People who are determined, passionate and believe in their ability to improve appear more likely to flourish and experience meaningful, engaging lives,” Sigmundsson said in NTNU’s announcement.
Grit and Growth Mindset: Which One Mattered More?
All three traits were linked to one another, with correlations ranging from moderate to strong (r = .48 to .67). In other words, people high in one tended to be high in the others. But when the researchers looked at each trait’s unique contribution, a pattern emerged.
| Well-being outcome | Grit | Passion | Growth mindset |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flow (“in the zone”) | Strongest link | Linked | No unique link |
| Meaning in life | Linked | Linked | No unique link |
| Flourishing | Linked | Linked | Linked |
Grit had the strongest associations overall, especially with flow. Its standardized weight for flow was about .40, compared with essentially zero (.005) for growth mindset once grit and passion were accounted for.
“Grit and passion were particularly strongly associated with well-being, while a growth mindset had a distinct association with flourishing,” Lorås said.
Taken together, the three traits formed one “personal motivation” factor that was strongly associated with overall well-being. The researchers reported a standardized path of .65, which counts as a large effect by common statistical rules of thumb.
Why growth mindset only showed up for flourishing
The authors offer a plausible explanation. Flourishing is a broad sense of functioning well, including optimism and competence, so believing you can improve fits naturally there. Flow, by contrast, depends on actually doing the work and matching challenge to skill, which lines up more with grit and passion. Meaning in life is a big-picture judgment about purpose that may not hinge on whether you think your talents can grow.
That doesn’t make growth mindset useless. It means the belief alone may not carry you as far as the behavior. The practical lesson: treat grit and growth mindset as a team, where the belief gets you started and the perseverance keeps you moving.
The Big Caveat: Association, Not Cause
This is a cross-sectional survey, a snapshot at one point in time. It can show that gritty, passionate people tend to report better well-being. It can’t show which comes first.
“Our study cannot establish that motivation directly leads to a better quality of life. We only studied these people at one point in time and did not examine how they developed over time,” Sigmundsson said.
It could easily run the other way: people whose lives already feel meaningful may find it easier to persevere. A few other limits worth knowing:
- Self-reported everything. Both the traits and the well-being were measured by questionnaire, which can inflate links between them.
- Convenience sample. Participants were recruited through social media, mostly Norwegian and about 62% female.
- Perceived, not objective, well-being. The results reflect how people feel about their lives, not their actual circumstances.
- “Grit” was measured with a perseverance scale. The team used a 10-item Perseverance Scale that correlates moderately with the widely used Short Grit Scale, not the Grit Scale itself.
“We need longer-term and experimental studies to determine whether these traits actually lead to a better quality of life,” Lorås said.
How to Build Grit (Without Faking It)
Grit was popularized by University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth, whose 2007 research defined it as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. In her book Grit, she describes four psychological assets that gritty people tend to develop. Here’s how to put them to work:
- Start with interest. Duckworth argues passion usually grows out of interest you explore and deepen over time, rather than appearing fully formed. Pick something that genuinely pulls you, then keep showing up long enough for it to get interesting.
- Practice deliberately. Once interest takes hold, aim at specific weaknesses instead of repeating what you’re already good at. Small, focused sessions beat vague marathon efforts.
- Connect it to purpose. Duckworth describes purpose as the sense that your work matters to other people. Ask who benefits when you get better at this.
- Keep hope alive. In her framework, hope runs through every stage. This is where grit and growth mindset meet: believing you can improve keeps you going after setbacks.
Notice what that list leaves out: grinding through things you hate. In the NTNU data, passion sat right next to grit in its links to well-being. Perseverance seems to work best when it’s aimed at something you actually care about.
Grit and Growth Mindset vs. Burnout: The Fine Line
Here’s the uncomfortable flip side. If perseverance is good, isn’t more always better? Not necessarily.
Psychologist Robert Vallerand’s research separates two kinds of passion. Harmonious passion is when an activity fits comfortably into your life and you can step away. Obsessive passion is when you feel compelled to keep going, even when it crowds out sleep, relationships or rest. A meta-analysis of a decade of passion research found harmonious passion had a large negative correlation with burnout. Vallerand’s model proposes that obsessive passion feeds burnout through constant conflict with the rest of your life.
Some quick gut checks to tell which side you’re on:
- Can you take a day off without guilt or anxiety?
- Does the work leave you energized more often than drained?
- Are your relationships and sleep holding steady, or slowly getting squeezed?
- When a goal stops making sense, can you change course, or does quitting feel like failure?
Healthy grit and growth mindset both include knowing when to adjust. Sticking with a long-term goal doesn’t mean sticking with every tactic, project or job that isn’t working. If you’re feeling persistently exhausted or hopeless, that’s worth talking over with a doctor or mental health professional rather than pushing harder.
Keep Building: Related Reads
Setbacks are where grit gets tested. Our look at the iterative mindset covers a research-backed way to treat failures as experiments. For the burnout side, see why the most disciplined people can crash hardest. And if you’re building a new habit, know that it typically takes about 66 days, not 21.
Your Takeaway: A 3-Step Grit and Passion Check-In
The NTNU study doesn’t prove that grit or passion will make you happier. But it adds to a growing picture: people who persist at things they care about, and believe they can improve, tend to report fuller, more meaningful lives. Want to test it in your own life? Try this this week:
- Name one long-term goal you’d still care about in a year. If nothing comes to mind, that’s your first project: explore an interest.
- Schedule two focused practice sessions on its hardest part. Keep them short enough that you’ll actually do them.
- Write one sentence about who benefits if you get better at it. Read it the next time you want to quit.
Then check in honestly on the burnout signs above. Grit should make your life bigger, not smaller.
