Behind my desk is a photo of me with Andrea and Paulette. I love this photo. Not just because it reminds me of how grateful I am for enduring friendships, but because it is a reminder of the power of perseverance and mindset.

In November 2016, I ran the Niagara Half Marathon with Zach and Josh, two grade 12 students who had once been students in my grade 8 class. We celebrated their first 21 km race the next day at an assembly at DSBN Academy. Paulette made the comment later that she wished she could do that. And just like that, we had a mission.

Neither Paulette nor Andrea were runners. In fact, Andrea repeatedly told me how much she hated running. I promised them that if they trusted me and followed the training program that I set out, they would successfully complete the November 2017 Niagara Half Marathon.

Three times a week, through rain, snow, ice, freezing winds, scorching sun, without fail, Paulette and Andrea were waiting for me at the end of the day ready for our run together. I confess that some days I was secretly hoping that they would bail because I wasn’t feeling like running. They never once missed a training run. Even when our run fell on Open House and parent interview nights.

We started walking 4 minutes and running for 1 minute for 30 minutes. It was just one foot in front of the other. By January, they were running for a full 30 minutes. By March, they were running 5 km. By June, they were running 10 km. They did their first 20 km run in October 2017.

And that picture behind my desk? It shows them at the finish line of the Niagara Half Marathon. One foot in front of the other for 21 km. I still get teary when I think of how exciting it was to see them cross the finish line.

That is the power of a growth mindset. They decided to take the risk to try something ambitious, they believed in their abilities to improve, they were willing to be coached and they persevered through challenges without ever giving up.

Carol Dweck is a professor and researcher at Stanford University and one of the world’s foremost researchers on success and motivation. She has written extensively on the power of having a “growth mindset” and the impact that our mindset has on our success. Both Paul Tough (How Children Succeed) and Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers) have also written about the effects of grit and 10,000 hours of practice in their books. And Jo Boaler has also done considerable research about the effects of a growth mindset on how we learn Math. The powerful idea in all their research is that we have a choice in how we approach challenges.

People with a “fixed mindset” believe that people are either smart or not, that only some people have been gifted with talents and skills, and that we have no control over this.

People with a “growth mindset” believe that skills and intelligence are developed over time and that people who are “good” at something got that way through practice. More importantly, people with a growth mindset believe that they have control over their abilities and that skills can be developed.

Study after study shows that having a growth mindset leads to resilience in the face of challenges, a willingness to make mistakes in the process of learning and an openness to accept feedback in order to improve.

In this excellent 8-minute video (click here), growth mindset is defined and explained. The best part is that we can all choose to develop a growth mindset and that it has a huge impact on our ability to learn and our success.

If you want to watch a brilliant example of the power of having a growth mindset, this video of the backwards bicycle is amazing (click here).

In January of 2011, I was mentoring a group of 15 grade 7 and 8 students who were all struggling to maintain a growth mindset in the face of some significant learning challenges. We decided that in order to develop our growth mindset, they needed a challenge that they could all achieve within six months. They decided that doing 20 push-ups would be something that even if they couldn’t do a single push-up in January, if they were willing to be coached and do the hard work, they could all achieve by June.

As the year progressed, I watched as these young men and women cheered each other on when they reached milestones. Five consecutive push-ups was exciting. Once they reached 10, we had unstoppable momentum. In the last assembly of the school year in June, I nearly burst with pride as I watched all 15 students pump out 20 push-ups accompanied by the theme from “Rocky”.

That is the power of having a growth mindset.