This is Hard, This is Fun

A few weeks ago, a dear friend and one of the best coaches I know reminded me of a powerful message from a book we'd both recently read: In the face of a challenge, how can you shift from fear of failure to curiosity and joy? "This is hard, this is fun!" she reminded me to say to myself. Funny how such a simple phrase can remind you of the richness that hides beneath the sometimes often-painful process of learning something new.

The book in reference is Mindset by Carol Dweck. Dweck's thesis is that there are two ways of viewing a challenge: a Fixed Mindset, which stems from the belief that your strengths and qualities are carved in stone, and a Growth Mindset, which comes from the belief that your top qualities are those you cultivate through effort. She posits that society has consistently trapped the majority of us in the former mindset in that we are unconsciously more impressed by natural talent versus hard work. Dweck points to examples like The Beatles, Steve Jobs, and Michael Jordan, all of whom have been painted as natural talents in their respective fields but whose untold stories involve struggling many times over to fail, learn, and reiterate along the way. Whether or not we decide to talk about it, they all had to to work hard for it.

In order to embrace this lesson, I've first needed confront the many moments when I've operated with a Fixed Mindset, tending to gravitate toward experiences that would highlight my strengths and avoid my perceived weaknesses. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy challenges; I recognize, though, that I've consciously or unconsciously tended to seek challenges I’m usually fairly confident I can overcome by leveraging the skills I’ve always been told I'm good at. On the flip side, I've been able to put a newfound spotlight on past experiences when I avoided a path that would have forced me to tap into weak spots, afraid that failure would not only validate my shortcomings, but actually invalidate my strengths. Yikes.

As you might imagine, in only a few months’ time this powerful realization has already transformed many elements of my life, personally and professionally. I feel much less attached to appearing perfect and much more interested in how I can grow and improve. It's affected the way approach challenges at work, the way I coach my team, and the qualities I look for when I hire. Allow me to elaborate on these examples:

1. Approaching challenges at work: while some aspects of my current role come easily to me, I discover things practically every day that require me to address skills that I have not yet needed to acquire. Often times, those skills have felt the most uncomfortable and have required the most amount of work, practice, and small failures in order to get them right. It’s in these moments that I’ve tried to remind myself growth is more often than not coupled with some pain, which has enabled me to embrace each new learning with keen interest versus dread. And thankfully, I have an amazing manager who knows when to let me fall and when to push me to meet a higher bar (See #2).
2. Coaching my team: a huge part of any coaching practice is recognizing that in order for someone to reach their potential, you must enable them to recognize and rise up to the level you believe they can reach versus the more comfortable route of meeting them where they are with the answers (see my post on coaching philosophy here). And most importantly, they need to know that the journey there is safe. The Growth Mindset has been a natural aid in this philosophy, helping me to remind my team members that when something doesn’t come easily, it’s absolutely okay to have to work for it. 
3. Hiring for the Growth Mindset: I make it a point now to pose the following question during every interview: "What has been your greatest failure?" This has helped me asses the candidate's propensity to shift from disappointment to action, their ability to account for their role in the set-back, and even their willingness to be vulnerable in the process. I can tell a lot more about what they'll be like to work with if I understand whether they're more inclined to learn versus to blame and to work hard versus shut down when presented with a difficult circumstance.

While these are only a few of the ways I've come to embrace Mindset, there are many more examples, including letting go of the phrases like "I hate origami" and "snow sports just aren't my thing." But those are stories for another time and another post.

In the meantime, I challenge you to find yourself saying the phrase ‘This is hard, this is fun’ as often as possible. Growth is never easy, but recognizing there's beauty in the process can at least help you approach challenges with joy, curiosity, and yes — fun!