Effort, Education and Growth Mindsets

Never has it seemed so pertinent to write this particular blogpost. With story after story of stress, anxiety and unhappiness amongst our teenagers, particularly girls[1], it seems appropriate to pen a few lines about a way to encourage them and take the pressure off a little as they start back at school, college and university.

We didn’t know it at the time but a chance reading of an article some years ago changed the way we encourage our daughters with their school and college work. Up till then, like so many parents, we’d told them how clever they were, especially when they’d got good results and very often at the end of the school year we’d reward them with some extra pocket money or buy them a present for their good school report.

The article rocked us back on our heels though. It suggested that praising and rewarding people for “being” something – in this case “clever” – carries the message that they have a set amount of that quality. So, in other words, telling your kids they’re clever is not particularly helpful because it does not offer a way forward, a way to improve.

It went on to say that the way to encourage people to achieve more, learn more and develop new skills is to praise and reward effort and link achievements with the effort that has been put in. That way people (and children particularly) are motivated to work harder as they see the connection between input and output and that success lies in their hands and not in some supposedly god-given ability.

It made perfect sense to me, particularly as I’d been someone who’d been told from a young age that I was clever and was praised for good results and achievements. However, I’d never worked it out for myself (and no one told me) that there was such a link between effort and achievement. As a consequence - and here’s the thing - when things got hard, I basically just gave up. If we did a hard tense in French or orbital theory in Chemistry, I’d just tell myself, “Nah!”. The reason? I hadn’t developed any skills in how to work through something challenging or difficult.

And this is the whole point. We need our children and young people to work through tough times. We need them to learn how to be resilient so that when things get hard, we can tell them “hard is not impossible”. We need them to know that the way to achieve and develop new skills is to work hard at them. With effort they can grow, develop and live more fulfilling lives.

I did finally learn my lesson much later on through my old friend, Gary Moss. Gary came into higher education as a mature student. The first thing that struck me about him, apart from his friendliness and bonkers sense of humour, was his incredible work ethic and desire to achieve his personally set goals. I kicked off my student days determined to have a good time while he worked, worked and worked some more. He was a year older than me though, so by the time he graduated with two awards, I’d seen first-hand how far effort could take you. As I entered my final year, I knew what I was going to do and took a leaf out of his book. I took on board one or two pieces of advice from Gary, made sacrifices, worked my socks off and twelve months later achieved my own personally set target.

This is why the article made so much sense to me. Much more recently, I’ve discovered what the article was actually about. It’s called Growth Mindset Theory[2] and it’s been thoroughly evidenced and championed over a number of years by Professor Carol Dweck from Stanford University. The theory is what it says: traits such as intelligence, strength, singing ability or football skills are not fixed, they can be grown and developed through diligence, determination, perseverance, feedback and resilience.

Just so I don’t mislead you about what the theory is, here’s Dweck in her own words:

"In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that's that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it."[3]

It’s not to say, of course, that we are not better at some things than others. That we don’t have an innate preference for certain activities. The point is however, that where we want to get better we can. Whether it is school or college, work or sport, soft skills or hard skills, with dedication and effort we can do it.

We can see now how the change of approach with our kids has paid off. We have recognised, praised and rewarded their efforts at school and with other life skills they may have found challenging.  We have encouraged them to see that their hard work will directly link to good results and sure enough, the marks have followed.

I’m constantly in awe of my older daughter, Alice, whose incredible dedication to her studies puts my school efforts to shame. She has made considerable sacrifices by her own admission but she is absolutely determined to do well at college and get the ‘A’ Level results required to go to the university of her choice. Despite being put under considerable pressure at school in our insane, target-driven, educational culture, she has now got in the habit of setting her own goals and of committing herself to the requisite amount of effort to achieve. She’s a real inspiration.

The great thing about Growth Mindset Theory is that it is easy to understand and intuitive. While few of us have dedicated ourselves to improvement in every aspect of our lives, there will probably be times when we have all had some success through perseverance and sheer effort.

Whether it’s building a model airplane, mastering a new recipe or learning to dive, we can probably all draw on an experience where we learned that practice makes perfect and effort makes excellence.

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[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36380910 https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/22/third-teenage-girls-depression-anxiety-survey-trend-truant These are just two news links. Google such terms as “teenage education stress epidemic” and you’ll find many more.

[2] http://mindsetonline.com/whatisit/about/

[3] http://onedublin.org/2012/06/19/stanford-universitys-carol-dweck-on-the-growth-mindset-and-education/  Quoted in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck

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Get Uncomfortable

Lazing by the pool on holiday is a great time to catch up with those books you’ve never read but always said you would. Susan Jeffers’s “Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway” falls into that category for me. Published in 1987 it definitely stands the test of time. It really gets to the root of a lot of our negative beliefs, stresses and frustrations about life and ourselves which really limit us. How about “Someone from my background doesn’t get a look in with something like that”? Or “I’ve never been able to sing”? Aren’t these just fears which we’ve created, very often triggered by the words of others?

Anyway, one of the things that really hit home for me in the book is the concept of comfort zones. We’ve probably all heard of comfort zones and why it’s good to leave them from time to time. Jeffers however suggests we really make a habit of pushing back the boundaries of where we are comfortable and seek out the uncomfortable. The uncomfortable where we “feel the fear and do it anyway”.

So I’m sitting there next to the pool while my 15 year old daughter is practising diving in. She’s always found diving really hard but perseverance, a determination to improve and a willingness to learn are her hallmarks. And these characteristics served her well as she moved out of her very comfortable zone of just lowering herself into the pool. She faced up to her fear of diving in and had a go. And then another, and then another, all the time building on feedback from us until we could really see the improvement. She’s still got some way to go to where she wants to be but that is one big comfort zone she was looking to expand. (Really proud dad moment.)

As I took pride in her efforts, Susan Jeffers’s words came back to me and then it occurred to me that my daughter isn’t the only one with a comfort zone around diving. I haven’t dived into a pool for 40 years! I’ve avoided it all this time. I’ve avoided it because “I was rubbish at it at school”, “I can only belly flop” and “everyone laughed at me when I was younger”. Now I can say I’m genuinely afraid of it.

Except, no longer!

I took inspiration from my daughter and just a few days ago I dived into a pool for the first time since I was at school. It wasn’t pretty and I made sure no one was around but I did it despite the fear inside me. And then I did it again. Twice. I’ve now taken feedback, improved and I’m proud to say I can dive into a pool without anyone laughing at me!!!

Encouraged by expanding my comfort zones in one area, I have now done it in others too. I bought a (for me) expensive leather wallet which I really liked (I really felt apprehensive about spending that amount of money on myself); I’ve dived to the bottom of the pool also for the first time in 40 years (took a lot of courage); I’m driving a left-hand drive car on the right hand side of the road for the first time in my life (very nervous); and walked up quite a high church tower to look at the view from the top despite the fear of heights I’ve developed in recent years (took the biggest amount of courage of all). And guess what? I’m still here, still alive and actually feeling rather chuffed with myself.

I’ve also been inspired by two good friends of mine Yvonne and Kevin Wyke. They’re both very sporty and very fit. Yvonne is a very good runner who through injury had to look to other sports to provide her fix for a while. So she joined Kev, a keen cyclist, for some demanding bike rides and when she got back running, she and Kev decided they were going to aim for a triathlon together. So what you may think. Except the swimming component provided a significant obstacle for both of them. Until recently, neither of them had even been able to do front crawl but they had put their names down to do a triathlon in the English Lake District which comprised a swim of 1500m in very cold, open water. Quite a challenge eh? Well, some months later they both managed it - the triathlon and of course, expanding their comfort zones massively. Two very proud people, buzzing from a huge achievement.

Another real hero to me at expanding comfort zones is my wife. Monika came to the UK over 20 years ago with very little English and has embraced a whole new life here. She’s just about to finish her PhD which is demanding enough on its own but to write one in a foreign language is a massive achievement. She’s not quite there yet but when she does, there’ll be a big celebration, not only for her achieving her doctorate but in recognition of the fears and mental obstacles she has overcome and of course, for a huge widening of her comfort zone and exploration of what is possible.

Thanks to my family and friends for their inspiration and I hope it serves as inspiration to you too.

Which comfort zone will you be pushing the boundaries of soon?

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Small Business Owners Take Note. It's All About The Response.

We've all heard of roads described as arteries. Never more is that true than when the road brings essential customers to a new business. And when that artery gets blocked? What does the new business owner do then?

Indeed, what do you do when your customers are just not paying you on time? How do you react when your largest customer goes bust? What is your plan when you have mouths to feed and all your contacts dry up? What happens when recession bites? These are realities. For the thousands of self-employed people, freelancers and small-business owners all over this country and beyond, life is lived on a cliff-edge at times. All these scenarios and more have been played out just among business people I know. They are certainly different from the challenges faced by employed people.


Helen Brown, a loyal reader of this blog, followed her dream and opened her floristry business, Budz by Helen Jane, in 2011. She had grown up with flowers and eventually followed her late mum into the floristry business with her husband, Andy. Then, just as their business was finally finding its feet, the main road near their shop was closed for several months. Many of their customers stayed loyal but what do you do when it's raining and you want to pick up a big bouquet of flowers? Do you park a few streets away and carry them in the rain? A rhetorical question I know. 

This isn't a fairy-tale. Andy and Helen struggled and they only just managed to keep their heads above water. Did they feel angry? Did they feel down? Well, wouldn't you. We're all human, aren't we? 

“It was so frustrating to have built up a customer base to see it decimated overnight. We did feel angry and it took a big effort to re-focus ourselves away from our grievance and towards what we were going to do ensure the business survived. But we managed, just about,” said Helen, reflecting on those difficult times.

Paul McGee, The Sumo Guy, in his great presentations and memorable book, talks about Hippo Time, when it's okay to wallow and feel our emotions. It acknowledges that we are human and that we will feel emotional in response to life's misfortunes. Crucially though, he says, when we've finished that tub of ice cream, had the cuddle or surfaced from under the duvet, it's time to move on. The shorter we can limit the time that we feel angry or upset, the better it will be for us.

When I feel that the negative thoughts have partied too long in my head, I've developed a habit of lightly slapping the back of my hand into the palm of the other. It just gives me a signal that the bad feelings have had their time and now I can give some quality time to helpful, constructive thoughts.


The question is though, when wallowing is over, what do you do next?


James Caan, of Dragons' Den fame, related in his autobiography how, when his recruitment agency faced its first recession in 1992, he sought desperate solutions in order to stay afloat. He started spending time away from the business and explored all kinds of other business opportunities, some of them very fashionable at the time, but none of them seemed right. It was only after a piece of advice from his father that he realised his response to the disaster of the recession wasn't helping. He'd stopped doing what he was good at and the business had lost its focus. So he chose to go back to good habits which had helped him build the business. The next day, for the first time in many months he went to work with a smile on his face.

“I had accepted the situation I was in. I wasn't going to fight it or torture everyone with 'Why did it have to happen to me?' sob stories. I was going to lay the groundwork for future success.” And that is just what he did.

To put food on the table, Helen and Andy had to utilise other skills. Helen took some work as a consultant in her former profession of H.R. and Andy diversified into gardening, at the same time ensuring they “didn't take their eye off the ball”, as Helen put it. They carried on the good habits they had built up in their floristry business, including playing an active role within their local community. More significantly they also chose another route: they leant on their friends, their support network and each other. 

“Andy and I have very little family, so we rely on our friends a great deal. A strong network of friends with varying experiences and skills are our first port of call, then perhaps those who we have networked with and then latterly other professionals. We've learnt who we can really rely on to help us, mentor us, support us, just be there...


'Andy and I are business partners as well as life partners. We rely on each other too so when one is down, the other needs to be up. When we're both up, life is great but when we're both down it sometimes takes some serious talking to each other to get back up!”

I love the (probably apocryphal) story from Guerilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson where a small book shop, sandwiched between two much larger ones, responded to banners on both other shops announcing fantastic offers with a banner of their own above their front door. “Entrance Here” it read.


As Stephen Covey wrote, “between stimulus and response is a gap”. In that gap is where we choose our response.


And that's it in a nutshell. Whatever “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” may befall you in your business or working life, you choose your response to them. Whether you blame, complain, bitch, cry, feel sorry for yourself, get angry or feel a victim, you have chosen that response.


Just as you have chosen an unhelpful response, the good news is you can choose a helpful one. Market yourself creatively, focus on your skills, build your community or rely on your support network. These are all choices too.


What are you going to choose next time?






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