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What can I do to boost this one?
My first suggestion in that regard is to
update your beliefs about intelligence and talent
.
When Carol and her collaborators try to convince people that intelligence, or any other talent, can
improve with effort, she starts by explaining the brain. For instance, she recounts a study published in
the top scientific journal
Nature
that tracked adolescent brain development. Many of the adolescents
in this study increased their IQ scores from age fourteen, when the study started, to age eighteen, when
it concluded. This fact—that IQ scores are not entirely fixed over a person’s life span—usually
comes as a surprise. What’s more, Carol continues, these same adolescents showed sizable changes
in brain structure: “Those who got better at math skills strengthened the areas of the brain related to
math, and the same was true for English skills.”
Carol also explains that the brain is remarkably adaptive. Like a muscle that gets stronger with
use, the brain changes itself when you struggle to master a new challenge. In fact, there’s never a time
in life when the brain is completely “fixed.” Instead, all our lives, our neurons retain the potential to
grow new connections with one another and to strengthen the ones we already have. What’s more,
throughout adulthood, we maintain the ability to grow myelin, a sort of insulating sheath that protects
neurons and speeds signals traveling between them.
My next suggestion is to
practice optimistic self-talk
.
The link between cognitive behavioral therapy and learned helplessness led to the development of
“resilience training.” In essence, this interactive curriculum is a preventative dose of cognitive
behavioral therapy. In one study, children who completed this training showed lower levels of
pessimism and developed fewer symptoms of depression over the next two years. In a similar study,
pessimistic college students demonstrated less anxiety over the subsequent two years and less
depression over three years.
If, reading this chapter, you recognize yourself as an extreme pessimist, my advice is to find a
cognitive behavioral therapist. I know how unsatisfying this recommendation might sound. Many
years ago, as a teenager, I wrote to Dear Abby about a problem I was having. “Go see a therapist,”
she wrote back. I recall tearing up her letter, angry she didn’t propose a neater, faster, more
straightforward solution. Nevertheless, suggesting that reading twenty pages about the science of hope
is enough to remove an ingrained pessimistic bias would be naive. There’s much more to say about
cognitive behavioral therapy and resilience training than I can summarize here.
The point is that you can, in fact, modify your self-talk, and you can learn to not let it interfere with
you moving toward your goals. With practice and guidance, you can change the way you think, feel,
and, most important, act when the going gets rough.
As a transition to the final section of this book, “Growing Grit from the Outside In,” let me offer
one final suggestion for teaching yourself hope:
Ask for a helping hand
.
A few years ago, I met a retired mathematician named Rhonda Hughes. Nobody in Rhonda’s family
had gone to college, but as a girl, she liked math a whole lot more than stenography. Rhonda
eventually earned a PhD in mathematics and, after seventy-nine of her eighty applications for a faculty
position were rejected, she took a job at the single university that made her an offer.
One reason Rhonda got in touch was to tell me that she had an issue with an item on the Grit Scale.
“I don’t like that item that says, ‘Setbacks don’t discourage me.’ That makes no sense. I mean, who
doesn’t get discouraged by setbacks? I certainly do. I think it should say, ‘Setbacks don’t discourage
me
for long. I get back on my feet
.’ ”
Of course, Rhonda was right, and in so many words, I changed the item accordingly.
But the most important thing about Rhonda’s story is that she almost never got back up all by
herself. Instead, she figured out that asking for help was a good way to hold on to hope.
Here’s just one of the stories she told me: “I had this mentor who knew, even before I did, that I
was going to be a mathematician. It all started when I’d done very poorly on one of his tests, and I
went to his office and cried. All of a sudden, he jumped up out of his chair and, without a word, ran
out of the room. When, finally, he came back he said, ‘Young lady, you should go to graduate school in
mathematics. But you’re taking all of the wrong courses.’ And he had all of the courses I
should
have
been taking mapped out, and the personal promises of other faculty that they’d help.”
About twenty years ago, Rhonda cofounded the EDGE Program with Sylvia Bozeman, a fellow
mathematician. EDGE stands for Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education, and its mission is to
support women and minority students pursuing doctoral training in mathematics. “People assume you
have to have some special talent to do mathematics,” Sylvia has said. “They think you’re either born
with it, or you’re not. But Rhonda and I keep saying, ‘You actually
develop
the ability to do
mathematics.
Don’t give up
!’ ”
“There have been so many times in my career when I wanted to pack it in, when I wanted to give
up and do something easier,” Rhonda told me. “But there was always someone who, in one way or
another, told me to keep going. I think everyone needs somebody like that. Don’t you?”
I
. There’s an expression in sports: “Race your strengths and train your weaknesses.” I agree with the wisdom of this adage, but I also
think it’s important that people recognize that skills improve with practice.
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