Growth Mindset
I was raised with a fixed mindset. I think everyone of my generation was. You were either “good” or “bad” at school. I guess it was good in that system that I was good, but it meant that anytime things were even a little challenging for me, I thought something was wrong. Being good meant that things were not supposed to be hard. I was praised for being smart, not for effort. In my quick look for a definition, I learned that “people with a fixed mindset tend to see challenges and failures as permanent states, rather than opportunities to learn and grow.” That can definitely be me when I am not at my best! Even after all my years as an educator, working to bring out the best in students and help them believe in themselves, I have to work on my own mindset.
In contrast, a growth mindset, or the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through effort and persistence, has been part of my kids’ education from the beginning. I remember going to the first school open house and seeing it on display everywhere. They had a poster on the wall that said “I can’t do it YET.” In math they learn to “think like a mathematician,” and that failure is part of the learning process. I was so impressed by this, relieved that this next generation of students isn’t just being put into fixed categories of good, bad, and average. But guess what? My kids don’t really love to work hard. If they aren’t good at things right away, or something takes effort to figure out, they get frustrated. They are impatient to get things done, rather than work through failure. They say, “mom, I am not good at this!” about things they don’t do regularly. And I try to take a note from their school and say “yet,” and explain that it is hard to be good at things we haven’t done before, or that we don’t practice and do regularly.
My baking story works with the kids as they have firsthand experience with my progress. I used to be frustrated that I wasn’t very good at baking cookies, but I rarely made them, or I made them in a rush. Now I take time to enjoy making cookies and I make them pretty regularly, and I am so much better at it. The family joke is that my cookies aren’t as good as Grandma’s, but these days the kids might say they are getting close. I think I made one batch that was deemed “almost as good.” But that’s ok, she’s been making cookies for at least 20 years more than me! So the point is, you get better at things when you practice them intentionally and often.
They both play baseball, which IS an activity where it’s taken for granted that practice, and getting the reps in, is essential to success. Great athletes don’t just show up amazing. It’s been interesting to watch them, because they are both naturally athletic kids, and they were both pretty immediately successful in all sports when they were little. But as kids grow up, athletic ability only gets you so far. I watched my oldest son go from being one of the best on the team to right in the middle, once the practice and effort of the other kids started kicking in. Now he has a routine that he learned from a particularly good coach and decided he was going to do daily, and he has stuck with it. He’s improved so much over the past two years from the repeated focused practice. I am waiting to see if my younger son will get there by himself too. We can help our kids (and students of all stages) understand what it takes, and equip them with the tools they need to succeed, but in the end, they have to decide how motivated they are and how much they are willing to work. I remind myself to be open-minded, to let my kids be themselves, and not get too stuck on who they are at a specific moment. They have a lifetime of growth and change ahead, hopefully long after I am gone. I mean, look at me, still working on becoming my best self.
Somehow it is easier to understand and accept that we need to practice and put in effort with technical activities like baking and sports, but it can be harder to remember with academic or professional pursuits. Just like Trevor practices his baseball skills intentionally every day, we can practice this with our professional skills. I have faced many challenges this year, in my new chapter, expecting to just be good at things, since I had already achieved a level of success. But I haven’t launched a business before, and I haven’t been looking for work in 15 years. Why do I expect to know how to do that, much less be good at it? So just like baking or sports, I need to learn, and put in regular, intentional practice to build new skills. Man, is that humbling!
Let’s not forget that it is pretty hard to be good at things we aren’t interested in. Research on strengths tells us that we are better off investing in the things that come easily to us, that we are interested in, rather than those things we don’t enjoy. This is why it’s so important to help kids discover their interests. Of course for some skills, we need to get to a basic level of competence (and you probably need that to know how interested you are, too), but if it is not something we enjoy doing, chances are it will not become our passion. I had an excellent math teacher in high school, Mrs. Fichter, who got me through AP Calculus. I was good enough at math, but I never loved it. I still remember once towards the end of our senior year, she gave us some problems to do in class, and she said “if you don’t enjoy doing these, then you likely won’t want to continue to study math.” That really stuck with me. I could work hard and figure out how to do the problems correctly, but I didn’t love the work. My friend did, and he became a math teacher. Like I discussed last week in my post on getting things done, if you don’t enjoy the process of doing something, chances are you won’t love the product either. Your friend who struggled through law school only to hate being a lawyer can tell you all about that.
Angela Duckworth explores all of these topics in her book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, and I happened to listen to her on the Mel Robbins podcast this weekend. It was a good reminder and perspective on how to think about mindset, and how to have grit. If we have ever needed grit, it is now! There is so much we can’t control, and it’s so easy to get discouraged. But we can work on cultivating our interests, dedicating ourselves to focused practice, and becoming the best version of ourselves in service of the people and issues we care about. She asks, who benefits when you do your job well? And the answer to that definitely reaffirmed for me that I am on the right path!
Do you want to work on your mindset? Would you like a partner to help with focused practice to help you reach your goals? I would love to talk with you. Request a free consultation and subscribe to my website.
