Worldwide Success

In the last post we talked about two great references from Guy Kawasaki’s blog that touch upon the subject of success.  The first one was a presentation done at TED that discussed what leads to success.  The other one is about The Effort Effect.   Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck has spent more than three decades doing systematic research that explains why some people achieve their potential while equally talented others don’t.  She has found that they key is not ability; the key is whether you believe that ability is naturally inherited or whether you believe it can be developed.

Her research has shown that people have one of two mindsets: fixed or growth.  And your mindset will influence to what extent you will succeed.  In essence, here is what her research has shown:

• Fixed-mindset people believe that your innate ability determines how well you will do on a particular endeavor
• Growth-mindset people believe that you can impact how well you do through effort

Here is how Dr. Dweck explains it:

“Many people who believe in fixed intelligence also think you shouldn’t need hard work to do well. This belief isn’t entirely irrational. A student who finishes a problem set in 10 minutes is indeed better at math than someone who takes four hours to solve the problems. And a soccer player who scores effortlessly probably is more talented than someone who’s always practicing. The fallacy comes when people generalize it to the belief that effort on any task, even very hard ones, implies low ability.”

In the article “What is the Secret of Success?” we talked about how researchers had shown that practice and hard work is a better predictor of success than natural talent.  The research from Dr. Dweck complements these findings by providing a psychological explanation for this phenomenon.  According to Dr. Dweck, people that are naturally talented, but have a fixed mindset, will expect to do well without much effort.  So they don’t achieve their full potential. Growth mindset people, on the other hand, believe that they can improve their performance through effort and practice, so even if they are not naturally talented, they may do just as well, or better, than a fixed-mindset naturally-talented individual.

One interesting finding from this research is that your mindset can change, and if you adopt a growth-mindset your performance can improve dramatically.

In one of her experiments with children in a school environment, Dr. Dweck observed that students for whom performance is paramount want to look smart even if it means not learning a thing in the process.  This preservation of self-image is dangerous because these students will avoid situations that may show that they are not as smart, and therefore they only pursue activities where they know they will do well in, missing an opportunity to grow.  Students that put forth a lot of effort didn’t think they were failing when they had setbacks.  They simply rationalized that what they tried didn’t work, and since they are problem solvers, they would try something else.  A key take-away from these findings is that praising children for their intelligence instead of praising them for their effort can be detrimental to their growth and personal development.

Although much of Dr. Dweck’s research was done in school settings, it is also applicable to other areas such as sports and business.

Effort is critical to success in any endeavor.  If you believe in this statement, you probably have already found success.  If you don’t, you may be limiting your potential.

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