Kristen Hamling: Success from 'growth mindset'

I HAVE been inspired this week by a great article in our Midweek community newspaper, which focused on the Whanganui Learning Centre and the role it is playing in helping people reach their goals through education.

What caught my attention in this article was the openness of the former All Black and Maori Television presenter Glen Osborne and his efforts to become a police officer.

The reporter beautifully documented Osborne's journey, from achieving 13 per cent in English for his School Certificate and barely reading and writing to now reading all sorts of books and advancing his writing.

He has started study at the Learning Centre to improve his writing skills, all in an effort to join the New Zealand Police and work with young people.

To me, it is clear that Osborne approaches life with a growth mindset. That is, he is likely to believe that practice, effort and hard work (a growth mindset) has more to do with reaching your goals than raw intelligence, talent and ability (a fixed mindset).

Rather than thinking: "I can't read very well and my writing sucks, so I'd have no shot of being a police officer" (a very fixed mindset), he has used his growth mindset to figure out exactly what he needs to improve upon so he can reach his goal.

With a growth mindset, he realised that he had to read more, and he had to work at improving his writing. He is doing all of this in what appears to be a very supportive environment at the Learning Centre.

I love that the Midweek placed this article on the front page. Osborne's picture would have caught a few people's attention, and he is certainly an excellent role model for many people.

Someone with a fixed mindset would never have the confidence to go on the front page of a newspaper, admitting that they needed help in literacy. It would suggest that they were flawed in some way.

But it seems to me that Osborne simply wouldn't think this way. He probably understands that natural ability is only one small contribution to people reaching their goals - the rest is up to motivation, hard work, practice, effort and good support.

In fact, this is likely to be the attitude that helped him to become an All Black in the first place.

If a mighty All Black is able to acknowledge that he needs help in achieving a goal, surely it shows to the rest of us mere mortals that success is far more about "what we do" rather than "who we are".

If we want to be successful in life, we ought to get started right now. Figure out what your strengths are and figure out where you need to improve. Find the people who can help you get started and you're away.

And remember, there is no such thing as failure in life, only opportunity for growth and learning. I think Glen Osborne gives us a great example of this.

A registered psychologist with a masters in applied psychology, Wanganui mother-of-two Kristen Hamling is studying for a PhD in wellbeing at Auckland University of Technology.