Mindset Matters More than Ever

If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning. That way, their children don’t have to be slaves of praise. They will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence.

Carol Dweck

We are all parents. We are all children.

We are parents when we are managing others.

We are children when we are learning and growing.

If we are praising children, co-workers, or friends, we should keep the focus on effort.

If we are handing out awards at work, they should be based on effort.

If we reward effort, results will eventually follow.

If an individual is not seeing results yet, they can be demotivated by seeing others rewarded for results that appear to be “lucky.”

Effort is always within our control.

It is natural to coast when results come easy.

But coasting is a bad idea. We should keep on peddling.

That gives us momentum to scale the next hill.

In addition to praising effort, we should encourage good mistakes.

A good mistake is

· Trying something new with a big upside and small downside that doesn’t work on the first try.