By Ann Lee
We all know the adage winners never quit and quitters never win. Or, if at first you don’t succeed try, try, again. Or blessed is the man who perseveres. An undeniable element behind the person who takes these adages to heart and perseveres is their faith. Inevitably, you will discover that behind those words is the belief that whatever the person is trying to achieve they will achieve it. It could be they have an unwavering faith in themselves, or their idea, or God. Ultimately, faith is a mindset.
The website Growth Mindset Training Academy argues that at the deepest level of faith is your worldview and it is this level, which is often beyond our conscious awareness, our faith can work miracles or get in our way. They ask the question do we really believe that what we believe is really real. That question stirred me. The underlying premise is we may not really believe what we think we believe. In other words, our actions may not be in sync with what we say we believe. This certainly seems to be true for many people and I have definitely had the experience of making decisions or choosing a path that was not in-line with who I am. The GMTA curriculum includes a course that is supposed to train your mindset specifically around this idea of your ultimate faith. Looking at the characteristics of someone with a growth mindset, we see that those people tend to embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, see effort as a path to mastery, believe critiques help them, and finds lessons and inspiration in the success of others. Each of those can be an indicator of faith.
A person who embraces challenges has faith that those challenges will be overcome. It may be faith in their ability, faith in their team, or faith in a higher power, but they have faith the challenge will be met and defeated. Because this person has faith that the challenge will be met, the “setbacks” are simply viewed as lessons learned. They move forward. It is their faith that allows them to realize this hard work is leading to better things – to mastery. Their faith allows them to relish criticism because they know the person isn’t being critical but is providing valuable feedback. They believe this because their faith is such that no one could be critical of them or the idea or the action therefor it must be someone who is simply trying to help out. Finally, people with this type of faith see in the success of others proof that they too can be successful because if they can do it, I can do it. That attitude comes from faith.
If you work with young people in any capacity, build up their faith, don’t tear it down. Their mindset needs to be trained and they need faith. Think of the faith of a young child who loves to be tossed in the air and caught. They know they will be caught. That faith needs to be broadened and reinforced, never crushed. Train your child’s growth mindset, train their faith.
