A Mindset for Growth:

Encouraging Success
As a mentor, you have a unique power to positively influence your mentee, to trust in
their own judgements and abilities. However, they may lack self-confidence and not
know the best ways to foster self-growth and development. In your role, you are able
to both identify this and take steps to instead increase their confidence, making a huge
difference in their lives. We have suggested below some ways in which to do this:

Fear:
 Discourage: Active avoidance of situations that would reveal any weaknesses
or lack of knowledge.
 Encourage: A proactive approach to seeking help or further knowledge.
 Keep in mind that your mentee may not yet have any knowledge or experience
in your field and may feel daunted to demonstrate this to you. Empower them
to ask questions and stress that while it often takes courage to say “I don’t
know”, inviting the right help will only be beneficial to them.
Feedback:
 Discourage: Self-doubt and judgement of set-backs as personal failures.
 Encourage: Valuing constructive feedback as opportunities to improve.
 Your mentee will greatly value your professional opinion and you can provide
many opportunities for self-evaluation. Of course, it is important to praise effort
but also try asking your mentee what they could do differently or better.
 For example, trade in “you tried your best, that’s all you can do” for “don’t worry
if you don’t understand it all now – focus on your next steps, what should they
be?”

Expression:
 Discourage: Passive or self-deprecating language, such as qualifying an
opinion first with “this is probably wrong but…” or “It’s just my opinion but…”,
subsequently negating its credibility.
 Encourage: positive and declarative language.
 Rather than inviting or assuming a negative response, reassure them to own
their opinions and say exactly what they mean without ‘filler’ words or
prefaces.

All of these points can be strengthened by relaying your own experiences and
struggles that you have overcome in your personal and professional life! By keeping
these steps in mind, you could massively improve the confidence of your mentee and,
in turn, strengthen your mentoring relationship.

Resources
If you feel you would like some further guidance on this, or you are just looking for
some interesting reads, we have put together a list below of both resources for
yourself or to recommend to your mentee:

 Psychologist Carol Dweck and her book Mindset, which initially coined the
terms ‘Fixed’ and ‘Growth’ Mindset, goes into further detail on how to both
identify negative behaviours and convert them for self-development. She talks
about this in the context of academics in her TED Talk; The Power of Believing
That You Can Improve.
 Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth About Success is a book by Matthew
Syed confronting the sometimes uncomfortable notion of failure and how we
can instead embrace our set-backs as opportunities for self-improvement.
Syed also does public-speaking and students can view his TED Talk here.
 Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Dr Susan Jeffers covers a similar issue
approached from the perspective of fear and also offers helpful methods and
exercises of overcoming it.
 Dr Ivan Joseph talks self-confidence in the context of the sporting world and
the importance of it as a skill above all others. You can find the link to his speech
here.
 Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results written by author, James
Clear, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven R. Covey offer the
benefits of adapting everyday habits, such as making your bed, that foster a
positive mind-set, therefore improving overall success and confidence.

Remember that you and your experiences are also a valuable resource for your
mentee, please do remember to share your own advice or any suitable resources of
your own.