Growth Mindset

How do you define success?

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what success looks likes, and how each person can have their own definition of success, although too many fall into the trap of measuring success against external yardsticks.

Last week I caught up with my very first The POSITIVE Lawyer coaching client for a check-in. I supported him as he was transitioning from being a sole practitioner to moving into an internal government project-based role. His career spans over 20 years, the bulk of which was spent in mid-tier law firms as external counsel, he also tried his hand at being a Barrister and most recently spent time as a sole practitioner. I first met him when I was delivering extensive training and coaching for one of those mid-tier firms to develop Legal Project Management competency across the firm.

He reached out to me when I launched The POSITIVE Lawyer as he has realised that life in an external law firm or as a sole practitioner just wasn’t for him. He found the internal culture of the law firms he worked for to be toxic and passive-aggressive, and he greatly missed the teamwork that was not part of being a sole practitioner.

He was searching for something more and something different that allowed him increased flexibility and an opportunity to apply his Legal Project Management and Legal Operations skills. We discussed alternate career options including moving into an In-house Counsel role, as well as regulatory reform and advice opportunities in government, and then perhaps moving out of legal practice into Legal Project Management or Legal Operations roles. It was important that he clearly define what success meant to him, and it certainly didn’t mean becoming overworked. Stressed, and burnt out on the path to Partner in an external law firm.

We looked at alternate legal roles and I helped him to update his resume and provided coaching so he could better articulate his value proposition and strengths. He was offered and accepted a 3-year project-based role undertaking regulatory reform for a government department and he couldn’t be happier. Without adopting a Growth Mindset this journey would have been almost impossible for him.

Here’s a snapshot of his new version of success –

• He earns 25% less than he did before in his current role
• He matches his previous earnings when he undertakes higher duties, which happens often
• He is a lot less stressed
• He greatly values the flexibility
• He has been offered a promotion after just over 12 months, and more importantly
• He is 40% happier

Too many lawyers focus on only two career paths – in-house lawyer versus external counsel. There are many more roles out there in the legal profession, so ask yourself…

What does success look like?

AND

How much is it worth to be happy?

Growth Mindset

I’ve been encouraging my clients to think outside the square and to look for different aligned and lateral career options that may be just as fulfilling (if not more so) and provide the opportunity for less stress and more happiness in their lives. When we step outside the box it is critical to adopt a growth mindset.

“In a growth mindset, challenges are exciting rather than threatening. So rather than thinking, oh, I'm going to reveal my weaknesses, you say, wow, here's a chance to grow.” Carol S Dweck

Carol is a prominent psychologist at Stanford and pioneered mindset and motivational research that lead to the concept of Growth Mindsets versus Fixed Mindsets. Her work is widely adopted and applied in the early education sector and is now being more widely applied in business to support professionals going through change.

I first came across Growth Mindset when working with the southern hemisphere’s largest cohort of school psychologists in the Department of Education in Australia’s largest state – New South Wales. I was able to use it to support the school psychologists and school counsellors through a major project to move to online student counselling records. This was a monumental change for them, so we applied the concepts of a Growth Mindset from Education and Motivation Interviewing from Psychology to support them in their adoption of the changed processes and new systems. I’ve been an advocate ever since.

Characteristics of a growth mindset

A growth mindset is the belief that a person's capacities and talents can be improved over time, and it can unlock reserves of resilience, learning, adaptability and improvement.

A fixed mindset is characterised by the limiting belief that the capacity to learn and improve cannot be meaningfully developed.

People with a growth mindset will be more oriented toward self-improvement and more likely to persist in the face of challenges and failures. They will treat obstacles as opportunities to grow rather than signs of their abilities being inadequate.

Benefits of lifelong learning

According to the research, there are many benefits that come from the commitment to lifelong learning that goes with a growth mindset, including –

1. Improves short and long-term memory
2. Protects the brain against ageing
3. Improves brain neuroplasticity
4. Increases resilience and mental wellbeing
5. Increases happiness
6. Boosts confidence and self-esteem
7. Improves energy and immunity
8. Engages mind and body
9. Keeps you healthy
10. Increases social connectedness

I’ve found that many lawyers that I work with are similarly interested in mastery and certification. One critical element often holds them back. Often, they lack a growth mindset and sufficient resilience to keep going through the learning ups and downs. I figure this is because lawyers have to work so hard at school and then at university to excel that they’ve sometimes run out of energy.

Simple steps to master new skills

We all know how challenging it can be to learn and master new skills. This will apply equally to the concepts in The POSITIVE Lawyer as it does to learning a new sport.

These 4 simple steps draw on the best experience from high-performance coaching models for elite athletes, performers and executives.

1. Immersion – this is all about concentrated effort over a short period of time to establish the foundation skills
2. Practice – then it’s about putting in the time to gradually improve. Unless you’re a prodigy then changes, or new skills will not happen overnight
3. Coaching – no elite sports team would ever go without a coach so it you want to be a top performer then it is useful to engage a coach or find a mentor who is a positive role model. The best coaches pick you up when you’re down and ensure you are fit to play another day.
4. Joy – it’s important to celebrate improvements along the way and probably more important to acknowledge the incremental changes as these provide the motivation to keep going.

Spotlight on Therese Linton

I’m a lifelong learner and absolutely love the process of learning a new skill…there is that moment of absolute JOY when you achieve the level of mastery you were aiming for! I love learning and mastering new skills and becoming certified as a recognised expert. I’ve had two parallel paths – one sporting and one academic.

On the sports side, it all started when I realised that I could earn money by becoming an umpire instead of playing sports at school, so I became an A-grade umpire for hockey and netball in my teens.

Then I went on to become a personal trainer and ended up teaching Certificate 3 in personal training, after this I became a ski instructor and obtained certifications in Canada and Australia.

Recently, I was getting bored with skiing after doing it most of my life, so I decided to take up snowboarding and this is all about enjoyment and mastery rather than certification. It was particularly challenging and painful for the first few seasons as I did the bare minimum to obtain foundation skills and then kept going back to my skis.

This last snow season I committed to my snowboarding, and I have gone from a beginner to an advanced intermediate due to almost 50 days of snowboarding. I accessed coaching in the form of a few lessons early in the season, and then several days spent with a good friend who is also a snowboard instructor in the middle of the season. This was critical to helping highlight the improvements and ensure that I didn’t consolidate bad habits.

On the academic side, my intellect and bravery have led to many amazing educational opportunities -

• Being in the top 3 of Year 6 before I moved to high school
• Topping all my subjects during high school and being the Dux on graduation
• Obtaining my Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in Information Technology and being one of two people in my year to be awarded our degrees with Merit
• Being sent to Harvard Business School by an employer as part of my bonus so that I could do my executive masters
• Being selected to do my Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification
• Obtaining my Advanced Diploma in Project Management
• Obtaining my Certificate of Training and Education
• Being invited to develop the first higher education Project Management certificate and diploma courses run in Australia
• Becoming a Unit of Study Coordinator and Lecturer in Sydney University’s esteemed Master of Project Management
• Developing the first units in Sustainable Project Management for the first Bachelor of Project Management program offered in Australia
• Being asked to write a textbook Project Management Essentials
• Having my proposal accepted by LexisNexis to write a practice book on Legal Project Management
• Lecturing for several years at The College of Law, Sydney

Just for fun!

For me it was never about competing with others or about winning or losing, it was about a love of learning and wanting to do my best. Most of the time I had no idea that I was so academically gifted, and I’d never collected all the achievements together before.

So, before I felt sufficiently confident to launch The POSITIVE Lawyer ® program, I sought out certification to support myself and my clients. That’s why I became a certified Neuro Linguistic Programming practitioner and Timeline Therapist.

And then I decided to do some education completely for the love of it. Something aligned with my interests rather than my profession, so I obtained my international wine certification WSET Level 2 from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust. I love wine and really enjoyed learning a formal approach to appreciating it. Next, I’ll be doing my WSET Level 3 and I’m busy working on the assessment activities for my Diploma of Positive Psychology.

Just for fun, I’ve been focusing on my snowboarding and just got back from a holiday in Japan where I got to ride amazing Japanese powder snow for the first time on a snowboard. And this southern hemisphere ski season I’ll be working on my Level 2 Snowboard Instructors certification. This will be a little scary and challenging and great fun!

Find out more…

Growth mindset and the benefits of lifelong learning are covered in detail in Module 2 of The POSITIVE Lawyer ® program.

Book yourself in for a FREE 30-minute initial coaching session. You could also check out our book The POSITIVE Lawyer Mindset.

My aim is to inspire you to transform your working life and achieve great things and I look forward to joining you on your journey!