Growth mindset, realistic optimism, if-then plans keys to achieving professional goals
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BALTIMORE — Having a growth mindset, acting with realistic optimism, and creating if-then plans to act upon intentions are three key principles for improving individual and team performance, according to a speaker.
Heidi Grant, PhD, director of research and development for learning at EY Americas and assistant director of the motivation science center at Columbia University, discussed ways health care providers can improve on their own professional success and assist clients with achieving their goals during a keynote address at the Association of Diabetes Care & Education Specialists Annual Conference. The three key principles Grant discussed are critical to avoiding pitfalls that inhibit personal and professional success.
“Let everything you do and everything you work with your clients to achieve be about experimentation, growth and progress over time,” Grant said during a presentation. “There is no change that can’t be made.”
Grant said there are two phases of doing for anyone trying to perform a new task: the preparation phase and the actual doing phase. When people are preparing to get ready for an action, Grant said, she encourages adopting a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset. In a fixed mindset, people focus more on proving themselves, demonstrating their skills and comparing themselves to others. In contrast, a growth mindset focuses improving ability, developing skills and comparing the progress one has made from the past to the present.
“When you switch yourself deliberately to a growth mindset, the first thing you feel is a sense of anxiety rolling off of you,” Grant said. “The next thing you feel is this desire to do something. It’s not about achievement, it’s about getting better.”
Grant said people should approach new goals from a middle ground when it comes to optimism. She discouraged pessimism, or believing you will fail, as well as unrealistic optimism, which she defined as believing you will succeed easily. She said the best approach is having realistic optimism, where you believe you will succeed, but recognize there will be obstacles along the way.
“Realistic optimists think about both the future and the obstacles very differently,” Grant said. “They think about the future as something to be achieved, and obstacles to be overcome. Because of that, they experience the necessity of act, that I feel like I need to do something. ... Experiencing the necessity of act, which is mobilizing your brain’s resources to achieve a goal, happens through realistic optimism.”
Even when someone is ready to achieve goal, taking action does not happen automatically. Grant said the two biggest obstacles to acting on an intention are knowing exactly what to do and missing opportunities. To overcome these obstacles, Grant suggested making if-then plans, where someone specifies what they will do, when they will do it and where they will do it, in advance. Making plans for different possible scenarios can avoid procrastination and is also an effective technique for breaking bad habits, as long as the if-then plan does not involve avoiding something.
“Simply thinking I’m not going to do something is a terrible way to break a bad habit,” Grant said. “It does tend to create an ironic effect for people who think of the habit more often. What does work is the replacement plan. When I feel the urge to smoke, then I will go outside, raise my hands in the air, and say I’m not a smoker. To break bad habits is to replace them with one that is good and positive.”
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Grant H. GS01. Presented at: ADCES22; Aug. 12-15, 2022; Baltimore.
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