Learning to love failure, and 5 other ways to get into a growth mindset.

The term “growth” or “learning” mindset has become a buzzword, but is it enough to believe that, with enough effort, you can do anything? Were our parents right: can we do anything we put our mind to?

 What is a growth mindset?

 30 years ago, Dr. Carol Dweck began studying attitudes about failure in students. She discovered that when students believe that intelligence is something malleable and that it can be increased through effort, they outperform those who believe intelligence is static—that you’re either smart or you aren’t. From this research, she coined the terms “growth” and “fixed” mindset.

With a growth mindset, neural networks grow new connections, strengthen existing ones, and build insulation to speed the transmission of impulses. Neuroplasticity means that our brains are changeable and having a growth mindset means truly believing that we CAN be smarter, better and more successful through meaningful effort.

 

Why is it important to have a growth mindset?

At MPWR, this is the first Habit we talk about in our “11 Habits of Champion Teams” sessions because it’s the most important. Having a growth mindset literally opens your mind to new opportunities, helping you to be more resilient, and will help you reach higher levels of achievement than if you have a fixed mindset.

How can I get into a growth mindset?

Most studies about getting into a learning mindset are geared toward teachers helping students. Studying students is a great way to get metrics through grades, and this group typically represents a good mix of backgrounds. It also helps that students tend to be more malleable than someone who has been in the workforce for a long time. However, the adage that “you can’t teach old dogs new tricks” is not only incorrect, it’s often believed only by “old dogs”.

Many of the articles on achieving a growth mindset are geared towards helping others get into a growth mindset. Here are 6 objectives that can help YOU get into a growth mindset.

1) Learn to love failure

2) Learn to crave feedback

3) Be analytical, not critical

4) Understand self-awareness is a journey

5) Be vulnerable

6) Build others up

Let's dive in deeper, and walk through some strategies to help you achieve these objectives.

 

Objective 1: Learn to love failure 

Failure is the greatest gift, because it’s the most effective teacher.

 Strategy 1: Write down your biggest failures and biggest wins, and what you learned from them, with the understanding that you’re doing this to learn, not judge

 Let yourself off the hook and remember that this is a positive learning experience. You might notice that you learned a lot more from failures than wins, AND they’re easier to remember. This is because of the negativity bias, which processes painful situations in a different part of the brain than positive events. The memory tends to be sharper. Use this to your advantage as a “replay tape” to understand where you can have improved.

 

Strategy 2: Answer the 5 Ws of moving on immediately after a failure, and as needed if you find you are struggling to get over something

WHO can help put this into perspective?

WHAT did I learn from this?

WHEN can I practice this again?

WHERE can I improve?

WHY am I staying stuck?

When you start looking at failures as opportunities to learn, it shifts the process of dealing with failures from something you need to do to something you look forward to. I can honestly say I’m disappointed when I do something right on the first try now. 

  

Objective 2: Learn to crave feedback

As I said above, I get annoyed when I do something right on the first try. To me, this means one of two things: the person who is giving feedback doesn’t care enough to be honest, or that I’ve peaked. I CRAVE feedback because it’s a challenge to push myself to be better. Has this always been the case? If not, when and why did it change?

 Strategy 1: ASK the people in your life to give you feedback as early in the process as you can

 Whether this is asking a boss, friend, or coworker, it helps if all parties understand that the intent of the feedback is positive. You WANT it, and they will be more likely to give it to you openly and honestly. Asking them to provide feedback in advance manages their expectations, gets them to think critically, and has the added bonus of encouraging them to pay attention intently.

 

Strategy 2: Pad your timeline for feedback  

Have you ever finished an assignment the night before it was due? If you’re like me, you have for 90% of assignments. While I’m energized by time pressures, it’s 1) not fair to ask someone to give you feedback when you only have a couple hours until it’s due, and 2) it doesn’t give you time to ruminate on that feedback and learn from it. Set your own due date a couple days before the deadline so that you have the proper time for this. 

 

Strategy 3: Seek out stories focused on why feedback is a good thing

Start to change the meaning of feedback in your own mind. 

Here’s a podcast link for radical transparency and how it saved an organization.

The psychologist who co-created the performance tool we use at MPWR told me a story once about doing Tai Chi. The instructor was ruthless in his feedback, but he only gave it to a handful of students. The psychologist asked me who I thought were the people with more potential—the ones who received feedback or the ones who didn’t? You guessed it: The instructor would only give feedback to the ones he thought were worth his time. In his class, it was an honour to be given criticism. “You are worth my time,” he was saying. 

 

Strategy 4: Approach situations where the objective is “third try is the charm”

This is effective in pairs but can be done on your own as well. Go into situations in work and life with the notion that it will not and SHOULD NOT be perfect on the first try.

 Try a variation of the 6-3-5 brainwriting method with a group or with yourself: Your first draft is never meant to become the final draft. Have someone (or yourself, a day later), review your work. After that, someone else (or yourself, another day later), reviews it again as if it were new work.

 When the goal is “third times the charm”, it decreases the likelihood that feedback will make you feel self-doubt. It just becomes a necessary part of the process.

We know that practice makes perfect. Why is professional life any different? 

Here’s a podcast link about the creation of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallejulah”.  

Strategy 5: Set yourself up for instant feedback wherever you can

Why is it I can confidently say that I’m a terrible bowler and my mom is great, but I really don’t KNOW if I’m a good leader?

We get instant feedback from the sports we play. There is a clear winner, a clear loser and it’s always clear when we do well. Judging if someone is a good leader takes time, and it’s up to us to try to cut that time down for ourselves. 

If and when we have opportunities to encourage instant feedback, we need to act on them. Ask your superior for weekly reviews instead of quarterly. Set up soft KPIs (Key Performance Indicators—the metrics used to measure how well an organization does) such as “if more than five people ask me questions after the meeting, I know it was a good one”. Ask for feedback DURING a meeting as opposed to after it.

Setting up instant feedback systems helps us continue to move forward, and helps us not only feel that we’re moving in the right direction, but know that we are.

 

Strategy 6: Ask open-ended questions that prompt forward moving feedback

Ask “What would you change?” vs. “Would you change anything?” 

 This not only encourages feedback but allows you to tailor their feedback to help you achieve personal objectives. If you want to increase the effectiveness of your communication in a speech, ask them to provide feedback on your tone of voice. If you’re looking for feedback on structure of an article, ask for feedback on the flow of the article. Get the feedback you need. This guideline allows them to provide feedback that is relevant and helpful and encourages them to give constructive feedback. Always keep it open at the end, such as “what other things could I have improved?”

  

Objective 3: Be analytical, not critical

This applies to how you think of yourself AND how you think of others.

Strategy 1: Approach situations with a WHY and not a WHAT attitude

 There will always be people and situations that rub you the wrong way. This strategy helps us proactively avoid the trap of staying stuck in a failure AND gives us instant feedback from ourselves.

When someone does something, or you’re in a situation that upsets you, think first “Why is this happening?” and then “Why is it affecting me so much?”  

For me, I think in data. Through the TAIS assessment, I know that I’m 12% decision-making. That, coupled with a couple other data points, means that I make decisions very quickly and can get unjustifiably angry with people who don’t. If someone’s indecisiveness upsets me, I try to picture where they would fall on our decision-making scale, and then remember my own scores. It doesn’t justify my anger, but it puts me in an analytical mindset so that I can continue the interaction without letting emotions dictate my response. Understanding how others process or approach situations gives you the insight to be your most effective self and make the most out of every interaction.

 

Strategy 2: Immediately write down or share what you learned from each person you don’t like, and each person you do like, following each interaction

Eventually, this becomes second nature. At the beginning, write it down in a text or in your journal, or share it. You’ll become a more positive person to be around and you’ll start seeing negative people, at the very least, as learning opportunities at the very least. 

This does not mean that you have to love everyone. Try going into a situation thinking “what can I learn from this person?” and coming up with at least two POSITIVE things.

Some examples that I’ve written down from people I’m not particularly fond of:

• I can learn from his confidence
• He does not let people’s negative opinions get him down
• She asks really good questions
• She always patiently waits her turn to speak
• He inspires creativity in his team
• He works harder than anyone on the team 

Eventually you train your brain to see the good in people first, and you continue to learn even in an otherwise potentially negative situations.

 

Objective 4: Understand self-awareness is a journey with no end

Like a growth mindset, self-awareness is ongoing. The road to mastery never ends. Become a connoisseur of yourself, where you are effective and where you need to improve. 

 

Strategy 1: Gather some hard and soft data about yourself

Performance assessments are a great way to understand where you can improve, and how to do so. They’re also a great way to reduce some self-critical tendencies, especially if you happen to be an analytical person who performs best when you know WHY something is happening. Once you know your data, you have KPIs for your own development.

 Here’s an example from my own data:

There are three ways that we can pay attention, or channels from which we can view the world from. I love using the example of a camera. There are multiple lenses, and regardless of how fast you can change lenses, you can only be using ONE lens at a time. It’s the same as how we pay attention. 

The first one is awareness. People who are high in awareness are able to see a wider range of things going on. They tend to be good at assessing situations, reading body language and making decisions based on intuition. Also known as “street sense”. 

The second one is analytical/conceptual, which predicts when people are good at organizing their internal experiences, including thoughts, feelings, and ideas. They excel at learning from past mistakes, analyzing situations, strategic planning and understanding the entirety of a problem.

The third one is focused. People who are focused pay rapt attention to retail, both in their own heads and in their environment. They like repetition and are perfectionists.

My highest Is analytical, my second highest is awareness and my lowest is focus. This doesn’t mean I CAN’T do detail, but it’s not the lens I choose under pressure. I find it exhausting to stay macro and focus on the detail. I’m constantly fighting the urge to look at things from the big picture.

Knowing this means that 1) I can let myself off the hook a little for missing details that others see, and 2) create strategies that help me work through repetitive detail-oriented tasks. I now keep a meticulous planner that has everything I need to do with check boxes beside it, when people are on vacation, when my meetings are and weekly goals. My planner is open beside me right now, as it always is. This helps me be more productive and helps ease my anxiety about potentially forgetting detail. 

 

Strategy 2: Create a strategic plan

Here’s an article that breaks down how to build a strategic plan.

 A strategic plan for your personal developments helps keep you grounded with your “need to haves” and “steer clears”, while allowing you to coach yourself through decision making.

Strategy 3: Get a coach

 It is our belief that the best way to succeed is to have a coach, especially a coach that uses data. Not everyone has access to a coach, so finding someone in your life who knows you well and excels at providing honest perspective is the next best thing. Check in with them once a month to discuss how you’re reaching your objectives, if you’re feeling burned out, and to make sure you’re on the right page. Once people get a good coach, they never want to be without him or her. 

Objective 5: Be vulnerable

 As Brené Brown says, “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change”. (If you haven’t listened to her TEDTalk or read her books, you’re doing yourself a disservice.) https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en Being open to failure paves the way for others to do the same, and shows a level of self-awareness, confidence and commitment to growth that most people flock to. Being vulnerable helps others learn from your experience, provides a fresh perspective on your own, and helps you get used to including other people in your growth.

 

Strategy 1: Be the first to ask for help 

Asking for help, especially as we become increasingly more senior in organizations, is something we rarely harness the power of. It is so worth it for so many reasons.

Being the first to ask for help:

•  Builds trust quickly (the psychology behind this one is cool…one aspect is that it shows we trust them which expedites trust, and also humans tend to be more comfortable in a position of feeling like someone else “owes” them a favour) 
•   Encourages two-way vulnerability (If you ask them for help, they’ll understand that you won’t judge them if they come to you for help)
• Builds confidence in your ability (If you’re seen as someone who WILL ask for help it’s easier for others to be confident in your ability when you say, “I’ve got this.”)
• Gets the job done more effectively (Two heads are better than one, right?)
• Helps avoid burnout (When you try to do everything all by yourself, you’ll inevitably reach a point of burnout. Proactively seeking help for the small things will help your sanity, AND will make it easier to ask for help with the big things)
• Gets you get out of your comfort zone (When you’re in the habit of asking for help, you won’t feel as though the next step in career, life, etc. is such a BIG move. You’ll know that there will be people to support you there as well.)
• Builds a stronger team of mutual resources. 

 

Strategy 2: Find the platform that’s right for you

Vulnerability is NOT doing things that make you uncomfortable just for the sake of making you uncomfortable, and it’s definitely not just sharing every secret you’ve ever had with the world. As Brown puts it, “vulnerability is about sharing our feelings and experiences with people who have earned the right to hear them”, and this looks different for everyone.

 For me, I’m pushing myself to be more vulnerable on a professional platform like LinkedIn. I believe it’s incredibly important for ME to vulnerable with my past struggles to find my fit because it’s something that so many people go through. I love writing, and it’s a personal goal to increase the effectiveness of my writing. I have a platform to help, a medium I want to continue to improve on, and I am excited for the opportunity to be vulnerable in this space.

Stevie Stewart, one of our strategists, is working on a podcast based on her journey to finding her fit by interviewing professionals to get the inside scoop on various industries, positions and journeys. (Stay tuned, it’s going to be great.) Stevie is a talker and is neither comfortable, nor has a desire to be on video. She can shine via podcast and work on HER vulnerability goals of being open about her struggles, becoming a better listener and relinquishing the need to be the smartest person in the room.

Some ways to explore vulnerability:

•  Talk about your fears with people close to you
• Explore your struggles and successes with coworkers
•  Ask for help when you need it
• Share something creative you’ve done
• Give a genuine compliment to someone who intimidates you

 

Strategy 3: Focus on forward moving vulnerability 

If you’re like me, you’re affected by both negative and positive energy. One of my own personal development goals is to control the energy of an interaction in a positive manner, and sympathize, not empathize, with negative energy.

 Sometimes vulnerability sounds like “I feel like a bag of garbage lately”, and that’s WONDERFUL. Sharing that kind of vulnerability is huge and opening up about my mental health struggles is always the first step to feeling better. Make sure you don’t get stuck in a loop of focusing on the negative. End a session of vulnerability with something positive.

Here’s an example from my life:

 Tiarra, my platonic friend and I call each other soulmates. We’re so similar in the important ways, can talk for hours and love each other deeply. Recently she was over for several hours during a work day. I worked on MPWR stuff, and she worked on her planner. Finally, I said, “T, I’m not doing well. I don’t feel like myself lately, I’m not sleeping, and I’m not eating the way I want to.” I have anxiety which is a massive pain in the ass. Another (literal) pain in the ass was the recent tailbone fracture from falling down a flight of stairs. I also realized I wasn’t giving myself enough structure and was starting to burn out. We didn’t talk about solutions, as T could see I already knew what I had to do. Just sharing that burden with. Her made all the difference. We continued our lovely day, and I told her (for the millionth time) how lucky I am to have her in my life. To me, that conversation was extremely positive and made me accountable to someone else to choose happiness.

 

Strategy 4: Choose the right people, move on from the ones who are not

 A little trial and error is necessary in finding 1) the right platform, and 2) the right people to be vulnerable with. If you find that people are constantly spiraling around the negativity, make you feel uncomfortable, laugh at your vulnerability or share what you tell them without your permission…cut and run.

  

Objective 6: Build others UP

In a world dominated by digital connection and social media, it can be difficult to support rather than compare. Let go of your ego to make room for true connection and collaboration. Remember that someone else’s beauty or achievement is not absence of your own. Alone we are good, together we are GREAT. 

 

Strategy 1: Be the first to compliment someone

This is much easier when, like Nancy (my CEO) and I, you work with data and you can SEE how comfortable people are with compliments. That being said, A SHARP compliment is nearly always welcomed and often opens the door for connection.

What’s A SHARP compliment? It is:

 Achievement Based

• Instead of a compliment based on appearance or personality, try a compliment expressing something they do really well. Did they speak clearly in a presentation? Did they recently come up with a more efficient way of doing something? Did they give you good advice? 

Specific

• Try not to be vague. This opens up doors for you to give further compliments without drowning them, it’s easy for them to believe, and you have the opportunity to give them positive feedback. Something like “That question you asked Tom was a great example of an open-ended question you tend to ask that moves the conversation forward.” Is more effective than “You ask good questions.” 

Heartfelt

• Be sincere about the compliment. Be vulnerable with the compliment, not robotic. Tell them how helpful they were when they helped you unload your groceries, or how it made you feel when they took the time to read over your proposal.

Appropriate

• If you’re at work, keep it to work-related compliments. Be aware of the environment and give compliments within.

Responsive

• Giving compliments quickly gives the person immediate feedback (one of our strategies!), encourages them to give YOU positive immediate feedback and gets you into a habit of producing positive and forward moving conversations.

Positive

• Don’t give backhanded compliments or statements with a qualifier. Instead of saying “You were unusually confident during that presentation”, say, “Your confidence in today’s meeting made me lean in.” Instead of “I can’t believe you know so much about sports!” say, “Thanks for the tip about which sports channel to watch.” (I obviously know so much about sports)

  

Strategy 2: Ask about accomplishments at least once a week

 Become the person that others are EXCITED to share their accomplishments with. Proactively ask about the good things happening in the lives of those around you, and listen with the intent of asking questions, not responding. The outcomes of this strategies are that you will build genuine connections with people around you, you will feel inspired by their accomplishments, and they will be more willing to help and listen to you.

 

Strategy 3: Have one goal when leading: help them be better than you 

Imagine what our world would look like if every leader had this mentality. Imagine what organizations would accomplish, the genuine network of raving fans you would build. Not only is this an achievable goal, but it’s truly a win-win-win. You build people who are committed to you, who WANT to learn, and who will help your team be the best team possible. 

 Ask three question of the people you’re leading:

1)   Who are you?

2)   Where do you want to go?

3)   How can I help you get there?

 

My (ongoing) journey to a growth mindset

I was a great high school student. I did very well in my classes, played on numerous sports teams, led various clubs, worked as a lifeguard, and had a lot of friends. I also had an incredibly fixed mindset. I wasn’t LEARNING, I was achieving.

And, as you can imagine, while I carried the fixed mindset into University, I did not carry the achievements. I had been used to basically straight A’s for just showing up, but now, for the first time in my life, I started to flounder. I would say, “well, I just don’t like my program, that’s why I’m not doing well.” I attributed the poor grades to the lack of studying habits built in high school, and my own mediocracy. My parents were wrong, I couldn’t be anything I put my mind to.

 I loved psychology and found it much more enjoyable than biomedical studies. I graduated with a psych degree, and no plans for the future. I settled into an administrative accounting role and started to build some perspective of what my future could be. Life HAD to be more.

Then my dad died of a sudden heart attack. Amidst the shock and the grief, I started to feel an unmistakable kick in the ass. I needed to do SOMETHING. I had to become the person my dad knew I could be.

The first step was understanding that I barely knew anything of the world around me, or about my myself and my own potential. I went back to school with one goal: learn as much as I could. 

Turns out, this was the biggest step in adopting a growth mindset. Grades were basically inconsequential, and my end goal of the graduate program was not “to get a job” like most of my peers. This was just a stepping stone to discovering my potential. I fell accidentally into the start of my growth mindset, and it changed my life.

Every class was an opportunity to learn. I sat in the front, taking frantic notes, trying my best to connect. Naturally, this attracted like-minded friends and got the attention of professors (like my current CEO, Nancy). I quickly started to believe in myself again, and then surpassed any belief I had ever had about myself.

A growth mindset is not something that you have 100%. It’s something you have to work on constantly. Learning to love challenges. Finding the good in crushing failures. Throwing the word failure out of your vocabulary altogether, if not reframing what it means.

When you reframe how you look at the world, everything changes. And you do, too.