Arm’s Reach

Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best by Angela Duckworth
Scribner, September 1, 2026

Ten years after Grit, Angela Duckworth's Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best asks what effort is worth in the wrong setting. Her answer is that grit matters but does not do the work alone. Much of what we do and how motivated we feel comes from our immediate circumstances. The objects within arm's reach, the peers and mentors around us, and the places where we live and work all shape what we achieve. Drawing on behavioral science, Duckworth moves through three stages. "Situational awareness" means noticing how our surroundings shape what we do, think, and feel. "Situational agency" means setting up our space, picking our peers, attracting mentors, and choosing our culture. "Situational responsibility" means creating better conditions for those with less power to change their own situations. That final stage carries particular weight for school leaders who design the structures students and adults experience every day. How a school organizes advisory, peer groups, and teacher teams becomes a question of how well others are set up to succeed. The book invites leaders to ask what situations they have designed well, and for whom. It also asks how every student can gain access to mentors and how schools can support them in building agency over their own circumstances. Situated offers a practical lens for examining a school's spaces, relationships, and norms, and for asking whether they help children and adults to thrive.