Praise yourself for the effort you put in

How To Get A Growth Mindset (part 2)

Author

Betterdo
August 01, 2023

❝

When kids are praised for effort like ‘hey you really tried hard’ or ‘I like how you persisted’, they work very hard to stay in challenge and they outperform kids that are given intelligence praise. ~ AH

They did a study on children trying to learn something. They divided them into 2 groups.

  1. Received praise for their identity. "Oh, you're so smart". "You're very talented".

  2. Received praise for how much effort they put in. "You're trying your best". "It's nice how you didn't give up". "You clearly put in a lot of time to get this result".

They found that the second group was more likely to try, persist, and succeed.

When you get identity-based feedback, you focus on preserving that identity. You keep working to stay smart and talented. So these children in the study started to choose easier problems to solve. They didn't focus on growth and improvement.

But when you get effort-based feedback, you attach the praise to the effort itself. You are more willing to work hard and make mistakes. So these children in the study chose harder problems and kept on improving their skills.

What does this mean to you?

, what labels do you put on yourself? What identities did you correlate to as a child?

Were you the athletic, smart, talented, charismatic, artsy, or leader one?

Maybe you had a time when you didn't perform well in that. And you let this label control you. You thought "I'm not smart anymore", or "I'm not good enough". And hence you surrendered.

But now you know what's best.

Whether you're trying to raise your grades, start a new business, get in shape, or improve your skills in sport/work. Or you hit any roadblocks today. Remind yourself to focus on the effort.

For today, praise yourself for the effort you put in.

Examples for you:

  • The code isn't working but heck I've sat here for 3 hours to fix it.

  • My grades are low but I'm still studying.

  • I'm not rich yet. But I'm hustling every day to make it happen.

  • I'm still single. But I'm going on dates and putting myself out there.

  • My muscles aren't showing but I'm working out 3 times a week despite my busy schedule

All these make you focus on the effort. Good job. You took the time to read this to improve yourself.

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