Praise Effort More than Results
“Success is the sum of small efforts repeated daily in and out.”- Robert Collier
If you want to be the best at anything, you have to work at it. Success is a result of effort. Likewise, if you want to transform your mistakes to success, then you have to work on the process and reward effort. The little 1% improvement is what you should focus on.
The tyranny of now, has made us to want results immediately. We want to be the best coder now, we want to be the best writer now. We want to be the best singer now, We want to win a marathon now, we want to win the Olympics now, We want to be successful in business now, We want a healthy body now, We want great relationships now. We live in society instant results. What happened to working hard, being patient, putting consistent effort and focusing on the process?
Could it be that the reason you gave up on that project, was because the results were not forthcoming? Could it be that you gave up entrepreneurship because you were hardly making any income? What about that relationship you gave up on, your dream of becoming health, wealthy and financialy free?
In the book The 4 Discipline of Execution, the authors decribe the four disciplines that one needs to get things done. One these disciplines, is focusing on the lead measures. The opposite of lead measure is lag measure. The lag measure is the outcome or the end result while the lead measure is the daily consistent effort that you put in to reach your favourable outcome.
Some of the examples of lead measures, is working daily on the areas you have failed at, having a checklist of the virtues that you want to inculcate, practicing 4 hours daily, reading a book, participating in weekly toastmasters class, attending coaching sessions or taking online classes.
Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues of success were born from what he wasn’t doing well in life. He created a system to work on his failures and develop his character. He did this by focusing on one virtue every week for 13 weeks. He tracked how he performed daily by using a notebook where he check his daily effort.
Carol Dweck and Mueller did an experiment on fifth graders. First, she told them to complete ten problems of moderate difficulty. After completing the problem all children were told that they performed well. The first group of children received additional praise for effort. The second group received praise for being smart. The control group did not receive any praise.
The initial task was followed by a more difficult task where all the children failed. The children who were celebrated for putting more effort showed great persistence and the willingness to take on challenging set of tasks. The children praised for outcome or intelligence prefered easy problems that protected their reputation as intelligent children.
It is important to acknowledge and praise the process, not the abilities. Praising abilities and performance encourages the fixed mindset. Praising the effort in essence means that your efforts are not cast on stones and that when you put in hard work, you can achieve what you want to achieve.
The simple act of praising correctly brought the mindset of yet to the children.To inculcate the behaviour of sticking to the process, it is important to acknowledge the effort and the lead behaviours
The first step is identify the lead behaviours and like Benjamin Franklin, track them daily. Keep them close to you. Celebrate the achievements of the micro steps. Acknowledge the efforts to succeed, fine tune the process, change the strategies, seek help, seek mentors. Once you get the process right, the results will stream in and you can always repeat and rince when faced with other similar challenges.
Summary
Praise effort more than results
Identify your lead behaviours and focus daily on them
Fine tune the process of converting your failures to success
