Which is the Enemy: Success or Failure?

What is the opposite of success? Failure, some say.

According to Carol Dweck, author of Mindset, the idea that failure is the opposite of success comes squarely out of the fixed mindset. In the fixed mindset, either you are good at something, or you are not. Either you have the ability to succeed in college, or you do not. Either you are born as a natural athlete, or you are not. Either you succeed, or you fail.

The problem with the fixed mindset is that it leads to fear of failure and the constant need for external validation. Since the fixed mindset asserts that your talents and abilities are primarily fixed - not suceptible to development or evolution - any circumstance or critique that challenges your ability is perceived as an existential threat. Thus, you constantly need awards or recognition or praise or - even worse - to make others look bad or to blame someone else in order to combat your own insecurities. Moreover, you avoid stretching yourself with new challenges because if you do not succeed at the new endeavor, what does that show about you as a person? Either you succeed, or you fail.

As Dweck writes, "In the fixed mindset, everything is about the outcome. If you fail – or if you’re not the best – it’s all been wasted."

Alternatively, the growth mindset sees infinite potential in your ability to learn and develop through challenging experiences. In the growth mindset, failure is not the opposite of success; rather, it is part of the process of success. A failure is a learning opportunity. "The growth mindset allows people to value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome,” asserts Dweck. If anything, success that comes without failure is the most dangerous potion of all because it breeds arrogance and complacency, two enemies of the growth mindset that will limit your success in the long run.

To utilize a growth mindset:

- See mistakes on quizzes and bad grades on essays as opportunities to learn from failure. Use these mistakes as learning opportunities and motivation to learn and make changes.

- See through empty praise of outcomes, even if it is directed at you. If you did well without even trying, did you really do much to earn praise? Instead, ask for feedback on how to do even better next time. - Never assume that you cannot do something just because you do not have the talent or ability. People who succeed work hard and long in order to learn the skills and abilities that lead to success.

- When mentoring or coaching others, focus your praise on effort, not outcomes. Praising outcomes (fixed mindset): "You did great on this test! You are so smart!" Praising effort (growth mindset): "You did great on this test! All the hours you logged in the tutoring lab are paying off!"

Success Stories Don't Come Easy

Trouble keeping food on the table, a family member in jail, no guidance at home about how to register for courses or complete a scholarship application - yet this student made it into college and set her path for success. Such a story amazes me as an advisor, a student overcoming so many obstacles on her way to success.

In such powerful stories of personal triumph over harrowing circumstances, I hear a common theme: these students define life for themselves as opposed to being defined by the obstacles they face. These students choose how they respond to obstacles instead of letting obstacles determine their response.

But let's be real: it easy to talk about personal responsibility, but life can be much  more complicated. Sometimes the obstacles are so great that we are knocked down and - as dedicated as we may be - we falter, we lose hope, we want to just give up, we just want to blame someone or something for our situation.

And let's be honest:  it would be naive to assume that we all start from the same blank slate, and that the singular determinant of success is individual effort and hard work; we do not all have the same boot straps. A simple analysis of history and society makes it abundantly clear that we do not all face the exact same combination of obstacles and opportunities. We are not born in the log cabin that we built.

And so, I understand when a student responds to an obstacle by blaming, or complaining, or simply giving up. We have all been there, and sometimes it is a realistic response to an extremely challenging situation.

But I witness a defining characteristic in successful students: when they get knocked down, they dust themselves off, and they get back up. To do that - to get back up - that is a choice the student makes. You can make excuses, and they may certainly be reasonable, but if you stay knocked down, you stay knocked down, no matter who is right and who is wrong.

This is the essence of accepting personal responsibility. Do you focus on who or what knocked you down, or do you focus on how you can go about dusting yourself off and standing back up?

It is  empowering to accept personal responsibility for how you respond to obstacles and opportunities.  Success stories don't come easy, and to be honest, they may never come at all. But if you have the courage to always stand back up, no matter how difficult it may be, then you have lived a life to be proud of, a life of success.

Solve problems. Adapt. Evolve. Change the way you do things. Control your response. Learn from your past. Accept personal responsibility for your actions. And then, succeed!

Take Personal Responsibility for your Success

Choose to Be Great: Prepare, Commit, Succeed

Allow me, if you will, to tell you why I like the TRIO Summer Bridge theme - Choose to Be Great: Prepare, Commit, Succeed.

First, it starts with choice. Our circumstances are sometimes beyond our control, and certainly we cannot go back and change the past, yet how we choose to respond to the situation this moment is always our choice. Knowingly or not, each day we make thousands of choices, and aggregated together, these choices form the contours of our life path. Will you choose your destiny, or will you let the winds of fate determine your future?

Second, success only comes after preparation and commitment.

We prepare by choosing to invest our time and energy into education. We prepare by planning ahead with goals and developing strategies for reaching these outcomes.

We commit by choosing to do all the necessary work, no matter how long or hard the road might be. We commit by seeing it through to the end, never giving up on ourselves or our dreams.

And only then do we reach success.

You're in the Driver's Seat

Skip Downing, in the book On Course, states, "Successful students adopt the Creator role, believing that their choices create the outcomes and experiences of their lives. Struggling students accept the Victim role, believing that external forces determine the outcomes and experiences of their lives."

In other words, whether or not you succeed in college is significantly dependent upon you and your choices.

Imagine that you are a single parent, working long hours, and now your child is sick. You choose to stay home with your child (a responsible choice), and thus miss your Math test. Now your Math instructor states that you received a zero for the test. Tough situation, right?

A student acting as a Victim might say that life is not fair and just drop the course. Or, the Victim might blame their zero score on the inflexibility of the instructor.

On the other hand, a student acting as a Creator might provide documentation of his child's sickness, and discuss the instructor's academic policies related to legitimate absences. Or, the Creator might identify how to handle the situation differently in the future by calling his professor as soon as he knew he would miss the test.

Your child got sick; there is not a whole lot that you can do to prevent this situation (in the short term). But, you do have control over how you respond to the circumstance, either as a Victim or as a Creator.

The question is: Which response is more likely to keep you on track to reach your academic and career goals?

Check out the Finish Strong video on SimpleTruths.com, which nicely encapsulates the Creator philosophy.


Bibliography: Skip Downing, On Course: Strategies for Creating Success in College and Life. Boston, MA:Wadsworth, 2011.

The genius in all of us

"One common characteristic in all successful adults is that, at some point in their lives, they come to realize how much the process of improvement is within their own control," writes David Shenk in the book The Genius in All of Us.

The main point Shenk argues is that our genetic make-up - our "natural ability"- does not determine our capability to do different things. The current scientific research instead indicates that the environment of our lives - our circumstances, our education, our diets, et cetera - play a significant role in how close we come to meeting our natural potential. Genetically-speaking, we are all capable of much more than we will actually accomplish, whether we are talking about learning math, playing a musical instrument, or running a mile.

This scientific thesis flys in the face of much conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom has it that some of us are naturally gifted to be excellent students or professional athletes. The rest of us can never achieve the outcomes of those "just born with great talent." The rest of us can only be average. However, the genes times environment thesis (GxE) explained in Shenk's book argues that superior achievements are a result of relentless personal improvement (environment) within a person's area of natural strength (genes). Moreover, each of us are capable of far more than we perceive.

Our environment signficantly shapes the expression of our genes from conception through death: your mother's nutrition during pregnancy, the culture of your home life, the qualify of your education, the opportunity in your society, the amount you exercise, the purity of the water you drink, the presence of role models, your work ethic, and so on. Some aspects of environment are beyond your control, or impacted you in the past. But many aspects of your environment are within your control right now.

Shenk argues that greatness did not come easy or naturally for Michael Jordan, Wolfgang Armadeus Mozart, or Albert Einstein, to name a few. While these individuals focused on their areas of natural strength, they only achieved greatness through an unrelenting drive to improve through hours and hours and hours of hard work. Shenk notes that psychologists call this deliberate practice.

According to psychologist Anders Ericcson, deliberate practice "does not involve a mere execution or repetition of already attained skills but repeated attempts to reach beyond one's current level which is associated with frequent failure."

Do not limit yourself by saying that you cannot do math, that you are not intelligent enough for college, that others learn so easily but you do not. Your mind and your body possess far more potential than you will ever need, but it must be unlocked through hard work, a willingness to try new things (and fail), and long hours of dedication.

Your success is largely determined by the choices you make, not by the genes you are born with.

Create Your Success

Some people are born into opportunity, others are not. Some people get all the breaks, others get none. Some people are treated justly, others with injustice. The fact of the matter is that Life is not always fair. But the question is: How do you respond to circumstance?

Do you take positive action to create the best possible outcome for your circumstance?

Or is your life outside of your control?

As a college student you have the opportunity to positively respond to circumstance every single day. Take personal responsibility for your success:
- Ask for help when you need it.
- Attend workshops to learn study skills.
- Apply time management skills to your busy schedule.
- Talk to you professors when you are struggling.
- Identify and learn from your mistakes.
- Identify a strategy for getting everything done that you need to get done.
- Do what you need to do to be successful.

Don't be a victim of circumstance. Don't blame others. Don't throw your hands up and say there is nothing you can do about your circumstances. Rather, take the initiative to always do the best you can in your given situation.

Still not convinced that you have the freedom to respond to circumstance? Read the following quote from Victor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor.

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

Talk about challenging circumstances, great injustice, and extremely limited options - yet some people of great strength took positive action to make the best of a horrid situation. Even if their life was taken from them, they refused to let go of their humanity and their empathy.

This, of course, is an extreme example...but perhaps an inspirational one. What can you do - right now - to take positive action to improve your success at Community College of Denver? What small steps can you take? E-mail a professor, create time to study, set up an appointment with your case manager...

It may be a myth that any of us can be anything...there are circumstances beyond our control that impact our life trajectory. HOWEVER, no matter what your life throws at you, you can always choose to take positive action to make the best of your situation. Success is never guaranteed, but your attitude and the actions you take (or put off) go a long ways in determining the end result.

Create your success - now!