Posted by mikezillion at March 17th, 2007

Thanks again to Guy Kawasaki for pointing out this interesting article on effort. The point that really sparked my thinking: people who believe that they are either good or bad at a task see no value in trying to be otherwise. If they are good, there is no need to improve. If they are bad, there is no point in trying. In either case–and this is where it gets interesting–investing an effort would risk invalidating that basic belief. So effort is avoided in favor of maintaining a consistent self-perception or public image. However, people who see their goodness or badness as a trainable quality are more likely to put in the effort necessary to obtain or improve abilities.

This reminds me of the General Semantics principle of E-Prime as an alternative to standard English for writing. If we eliminate the passive voice by avoiding forms of the verb “to be” in analytical writing, we may avoid a mindset in which we assume that things “are” other things. If we “are” bad, or good, that’s the end of the discussion. If we do well, or poorly, we have the opportunity to explore the root causes of our perceived ability or lack thereof.