12@12: Are you there yet

Are you there yet? Do self-doubts and worries about failing stop you doing things? Do you sometimes feel like an imposter at work? Learn how a growth mindset can boost your confidence.

12@12 sessions: Are you feeling the effects of compassion fatigue? Is work draining your energy?  Need some self-care strategies to recharge and replenish? 

The 12@12 sessions are bite-size presentations that are around 12 minutes long and were held weekly at 12 pm during September - November 2020.

(November 2020)

Watch the recording and download the presentation slides

Transcript

INTRO: Intro: Hi everyone, welcome to the ADCET Podcast – supporting you – supporting students. We would like to acknowledge the aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples who are the traditional custodians of the lands on which this recording is taking place. This podcast is the ninth from our series of bite-size sessions 12@12 to help you recharge. This session – Are You There Yet, looks at how a growth mindset can boost your confidence. Make sure you check out our show notes for links to the session recording and presentation slides. Enjoy. 

DEBBIE: Today's session is Are You There Yet? We were just saying before, like, are we there yet? It's been such a long year and it's feeling like it's nearly over but, are we there yet? This is not on a calendar, are you there yet, but it's based on mindsets and if you joined the session on Stress Mindsets you'll know that mindsets, which are the view - a kind of lens on how we see the world, have powerful effects. In fact we may not even be aware that they exist, but they affect our physical responses, they affect our motivation, our attention, our emotions, our mood and they're just not a reflection of the reality of what's happening around us but they reflect that reality - they interact with that reality in a weird way to shape it and if you think of placebo effects, which is a mindset, and the stress mindset about if you think that stress is always debilitating, then it can give you a headache, stomach ache, and sleeplessness nights, but if you think that it can be enhancing then your body can react quite differently. The work today is on growth mindset and fixed mindset. It's based on the work by Carol Dweck which is how our mindsets about our abilities and our learning shapes our ability, or our motivation, to take on new tasks, new challenges and learn around us. So consider how much you agree or disagree with the following statements, you don't have to put anything in chat. I just want you to, kind of, nod to yourself or consider to yourself. If you believe you're a certain kind of person and there's not much that can be done to change that or you can do things differently but the important parts of who you are can't really be changed at all. You can learn new things, but you can't really change how intelligent you are. The harder you work at something, the better you will be at it. And truly smart people do not need to try hard, they're the ones that can do things easily. So how you answer that will influence - well, no, impacts if you have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset, and I'm just going to explain what those are now. A fixed mindset. A fixed mindset is when you're motivated to look impressive, when you think that you're born with a certain amount of ability and there's not much you can do about that. Some people are lucky and are born smarter, some people are unlucky and not born as smart. So there's not much that you can do at all to change that and actually you can act out of fear when you're working in a fixed mindset because sometimes you think that people believe that you're smarter than what you really feel that you are and you don't want to be caught out and it can also be known as imposter syndrome, that, yeah, I'm not really as smart as what people think I am and I hope I’m not caught out. Also, I don't want to take on a new challenge or try something new in case I fail and then they'll know that I'm not that smart after all, or I'm not good at this. Also in a fixed mindset you can look at other people doing things so easily and think, they're just natural, I'll never be a natural at this. Whereas if you have a growth mindset you're actually motivated to keep learning and growing and knowing if you're not there, you're not there yet. So it's that power of that three letter word "Yet". In fact, when we work in our mentor group, if we don't get it right and we're supporting students on the autism spectrum, if the student that we're supporting doesn't quite hand in their assignments when we want them to or continues at uni, we always have that statement, we're just not there yet and knowing how best to work with that student on the autism spectrum. It makes a real difference to saying we got it wrong, we failed to ..., we're not there yet at understanding how to best support them. That keeps us motivated to keep learning and growing. So when you're in a fixed mindset your negative feedback hurts and you don't want to know about it because you kind of think it affects your self-worth too. You can look at who you want to blame, rather than say, okay, what can I learn from this? When you're in a fixed mindset, there's a really big focus on outcomes and while outcomes matter if you're in a growth mindset it's both the process and the outcome. You can see, even in parenting, when parents say, you're so smart, you're so good at that, what they're actually doing is reinforcing or establishing a fixed mindset in their child. If you're in a growth mindset you will say, hey, you put a lot of work into that test, so well done for getting those marks or you've kept trying and persevering. When you're in a growth mindset you do focus on the process and the outcome. Outcomes still matter but we know that the process is really important. You show up. So if you make mistakes or failures, or don't get things right, you go okay, what happened here, what can I learn from here and that negative feedback really supports that learning. You see challenges as opportunities, not things to be avoided because you're operating more out of that confidence. Right, okay, this will be a chance to learn and grow. Now, you might be sitting there thinking, yep, I've got this, I'm a growth mindset, always have been a growth mindset and that's fine. Well, Carol Dweck will actually say that no matter who you are, there will always be times that you could be triggered into a fixed mindset. In fact to say that I'm in a growth mindset, always have, always will be, is actually a fixed mindset statement. We're all a mixture of fixed and growth mindset. It's not a matter of just getting rid of the fixed one, it's a matter of how can I grow my growth mindset and how can I notice those times that my fixed mindset is triggered and I need to, kind of, then step back and take a growth mindset approach. If you like you can give your fixed mindset even a voice, you know a voice of one of those old teachers, and you can say to yourself because your fixed mindset is just trying to protect you, you don't want to fail, you don't want to be challenged, you don't want to look like you're no good at this, we've got a bit of an imposter syndrome, you don't want anyone to find you out, so you can say to your fixed mindset, I know you're trying to protect me but I'm trying to learn and I want to take on a new challenge here so just shush for the moment. So consider - again you don't need to put anything in chat, what might be your fixed mindset triggers? Is there anything in the past week where you think that your fixed mindset has been triggered? You know, sometimes even doing this 12 @ 12, it’s like I've got to step up, I've got to put myself out there, I haven't done this 12 minute thing before and on Zoom, you know, why don't they get someone who is really good at this stuff, who can talk like that and can tell stories like that. They're the kind of fixed mindset messages I'd be telling myself. The trouble is if we put ourself in situations where we can guarantee no mistakes then we're also not guaranteeing learning and we're guaranteeing no passion. So a growth mindset gets us to learn, and there's things that we're passionate and we care about. So it's about changing the stories that we're telling ourself. So when we hear our fixed mindset voice kick in, like what can we say to ourself that allows us to grow, a more growth mindset. So instead of saying, hey, what if I fail, to a more growth mindset, well, what can I learn from this experience? Or I'll never be that smart or talented to, I can't do that yet. Why do others do it so easily? Why do they look like they're just - you know, it's not a problem? What can I learn from others? Instead of saying, this has not worked. So what's our plan B? Say what’s our plan B If it doesn't work, where can we go to? Instead of saying, what would others think of me if I fail? Tell ourselves, failing and getting things wrong is just part of the learning process and that's okay. In fact, I had a great chat yesterday, I think, with a colleague who had done this huge mistake. She said, it was just - she'd ran a quiz and she had forgot to take half of the answers. So she had this whole frustrated group that had done the quiz - we want to know the answers and we want to know them now. We had a joke about it and looked at that growth mindset approach. The fact is we all make mistakes and we all make failures, so as well as that self-compassion, when that comes in it's a growth mindset. Like, when I was trying something new, I hadn't done it before, and that's okay. So that's on an individual level. On a team level it makes sense to know that if you've got a team who is working more out of a growth mindset then you're actually going to be better at trying new things, at innovating and at creativity because you're not going to be worried if you fail and if you do fail, you milk that failure. As Carol Dweck says, you milk that failure for everything it's got. What can we learn? How can we do things differently? It's not necessarily that failure is okay full stop but it’s what can we learn from that failure is the important thing and you capitalise on that, that you build more trust and cooperation. So you're not working out of that fear if things go wrong. You're working out of that, we know that we can get through things if things go wrong, we’re going to learn and grow and do better next time. And that's really it. If you want to find out more, Carol Dweck, as well as her book Growth Mindset has a great Ted talk, The Power Of Believing You Can Improve and there's lots of articles, Harvard business review and other articles on growth mindsets and how they're being used in different workplaces. Alia Crum has got some great resources on mindset, Change Your Mindset, Change the Game. That's a brilliant Ted talk. 

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