Focus For the New Year: Increments

Miller's father stressed the importance of Increments. It would be inappropriate to call it a New Year’s Resolution, as I’ve been mulling this over for a few months already: practicing the concept of “increments.”

Here is where I avoid my usual exposition - I don’t want to belabor the point - and give it to you in a nutshell. There is a theory that there are two categories into which most people can be divided, who could be described in this way:

The first is the type who, as children, came home from school with an A on a test, and their parents’ response would be, “You got an A! You’re so smart!”
The second is the type who came home from school with an A on a test, and their parent’s response was, “You got an A! All of your studying paid off!”

All my life, I’ve been in the first category, conflating the “work” that I produced with my personal value and worth. This “fixed mindset” (so-called by Carol Dweck of Stanford University) is not working for me. So I’m going to try thinking and acting “incrementally,” a term I first heard of last year while reading a very long article about the actor Wentworth Miller.

Coincidentally, several months ago, the LH stumbled across some papers (such as the one referenced here) on the subject of incremental thinking. Through conversations it became apparent that we both wanted to make a conscious effort to apply this theory of learning to ourselves.

So. We will see. The biggest hurdle may very well be finding value in small steps. Intellectually, I know it’s there, but it will take time to create new habits that really support the behavior I want out of myself. It’s exciting, and I’m happy the LH and I will be able to support one another in this endeavor.

Comments

5 Responses to “Focus For the New Year: Increments”

claire on December 30th, 2007 7:58 am

2 things-

1) i was also in the first category as a kid. in some ways it led to disappointment as i grew up and people started catching up to my smartness and i wasn’t super-special anymore.

2) wentworth miller is yummy
hafidha sofia on December 30th, 2007 10:02 am

Claire: that was *exactly* my experience - feeling like I’d outgrown my smartness and specialness. Time to get over that, I guess. And I definitely agree that Wentworth Miller at least photographs really well (I’ve never actually seen any of his acting).
Jeff on December 31st, 2007 12:38 am

I was just given a copy of Dweck’s book by my principal. A group of teachers will be studying it this year.
hafidha sofia on December 31st, 2007 1:01 am

Jeff: I found the Brainology section (pg 219) describing the workshop experiment with school children really interesting; there are interviews with her online and also a paper more clearly explaining what happened and the results. She also has a book that is more technical than Mindset. Self-Theories is a collection of her published papers, and is probably geared for academics and professionals like yourself.

Also, thank you for the Haruki Murakami recommend at your vox site. I was really intrigued - Kafka of our time? Hmm! - Looks like I have a new excuse to visit Borders or Powell’s.
Elizabeth on January 5th, 2008 10:53 am

What a great post! I had never thought of those two ways of looking at things, but I was SO in the first category and so I always wanted to do AMAZING at everything so I would be praised at being such an AMAZING person. It has been hard to learn how to say, “Elizabeth, you are awesome no matter if you get As in everything, do super-great at everything, are the smartest and best at everything, etc.” I will join you in the incremental approach to getting to where we want to be.