Don't WORRY... It's FINE!! Umm.. It's actually good for you??

Mistakes teach us a lot of things. There’s always something to learn. Getting good at something like making new friends, doing homework, or learning a new game, means being okay with making mistakes. It’s how we learn to do things better!

Try to work out how the mistake happened. This can help you know what to do differently next time. The important thing to remember is that we are always learning. Getting better at things takes practice.

Simply put, a growth mindset is believing that your brain can grow and you can learn many new things. You are not born smart; you become smart.

A fixed mindset is quite the opposite. It is believing that you cannot learn new things. You are born with your knowledge and skills and cannot get smarter.

It may help to explain that the brain is like a muscle. Just like when you lift weights, when you exercise your brain, it will get bigger and stronger.

With a growth mindset you can have a “can do” attitude. Then start to see challenges as an opportunity to learn and grow. Phrases like, “I can’t do it,” “I’m just not good at this,” and “This is too hard” are not a part of the vernacular. Instead, people with a growth mindset say, “I may not be able to do it, yet,” “This is hard, but I will try,” and “I can learn how to do this!”

A growth mindset involves moving negative thoughts into more positive thoughts and retraining the brain’s metacognitive thinking. Instead of viewing challenges as obstacles, we can view them as opportunities for growth.

You could interview people in your lives and community about a challenge they faced. Example interview questions could include:

• “What is a challenge you have faced?”

• “How did you overcome that challenge?”

• “What advice can you give to someone facing a challenge?”

This is a great introductory exercise that gets young kids familiar with the language of the growth mindset. It also helps them with understanding how to make the mental shift by altering their internal voice.

Write down a list of negative or limiting statements we can sometimes make about ourselves (e.g. "I'm not good enough" or "I'm too ______"). Next, show them how to place a positive spin on the phrase by merely altering the language we use.

In doing so, kids will start to make simple connections to how to change how we speak to improve how we feel about ourselves. Encourage them to give it a try with the rest of the sentences you've written for them.

Here are some simple examples of negative statements to begin with that they can quickly turn around with just a few changes:

Many of our most notable accomplishments came in the wake of equally significant failures. Our history is full of such examples. Discovering who these people are and how they overcame adversity to succeed can be very inspiring.

Go on a search for some of history's most famous failures. How did these people fail, and how did they come back even stronger to accomplish their goals and dreams? Here are some famous examples:

• Abraham Lincoln—Lincoln was a disastrous failure as a soldier, a businessman, and a campaigning politician. He went on to become one of the most influential presidents in U.S. history.

• Elvis Presley—Elvis was fired after his first Grand Ole Opry performance, and promptly told he should just go become a truck driver. It's a good thing he didn't listen.

• Walt Disney—His former newspaper editor informed him that he had no imagination and lacked any good ideas. Later, thanks to his accomplishments, his name would become synonymous with the word "imagination."

• Steven Spielberg—Spielberg was rejected by the California School of Cinematic Arts twice, and still became one of the most famous directors in movie history.

• J.K. Rowling—Rowling was a struggling writer and a broke, divorced single mother who was struggling with depression. In spite of that, the phenomenal success of her Harry Potter novels speaks for itself.

• Stephen King—His very first novel, Carrie, was rejected by publishers over thirty times. King's wife Tabitha retrieved the manuscript after he threw it in the trash and urged him not to give up. He didn't, and the rest is history.

This activity shows two things: first, the power of seeing mistakes in a positive light, and second, that even uncomfortable feelings are still valid ones.

Write down a mistake you've made on a piece of paper. Next, crumple the paper into a ball and hurl it at the wall or at the board with as close as they can get to the same feeling you had when you made the mistake. Wait a minute, and then pick up the paper, open it, and look at the mistake again.

As you look at what you wrote, try to think about and accept that everybody makes mistakes, no matter who we are or how hard we try. When you begin to accept this, you can think about how you could do better next time, and what to do the next time they make a mistake.

The final step is to crumple the paper up again, and this time throw it away for good, symbolizing the mistake is in the past and is no longer critical.

The growth mindset means having a strong sense of ourselves. It means knowing our strengths and weaknesses, how we can improve, and what energizes us as well as what causes us stress. Through this exercise, you can learn how self-awareness can contribute to self-improvement in many areas.

You can do this by answering the questions either orally or by setting them down in writing. As you ask each one of them, reflect on the nature of the questions and write down the most honest answers possible.

Achieving goals and accomplishing our objectives helps us grow and build on success There are lots of supportive ways to share those accomplishments and celebrate them with others. One easy and enjoyable way to do this is with an "accomplishment jar."

To do this, get a large jar (large enough to get your and into) or a small fishbowl. Next, make slips of paper with these questions: What's one thing that I accomplished today? How do I feel about it, and why?

Leave a small box beside the jar containing these slips and a few pencils. Now, fill out one or two every day along with your name, and place them into the jar.

At the end of every week or so, you can take the slips out and create a pile and review your accomplishments and celebrate how much you've grown and what you've learned.