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The Science of Success University of Michigan - Coggle Diagram
The Science of Success
University of Michigan
W1. Introduction
This course answers
What do the most sucessfull people do differently than others?
Can these characteristics and behaviors be learned?
What can you do to increase the possibility that you will achieve your goals throughout your life?
This course helps to
Meaningful results at work
Achieve career goals
Career. A series of work experiences that evolve over the course of your life.
Career success. Feeling positive overall with both the career choices that you make and the outcomes of those choices.
Sustainable career
Fits with your values.
Provides financial security.
Adapts to life interests.
Adapts to external environment.
Improve well being
Success measures
External (objective)
Status, titles, degrees, awards, what you get paid, where you live and what you drive
Judging your career primarly on external measures can be hard on your self-esteem if you lose them and that's how you measure your worth.
Internal (subjective)
Like believing you're making a difference through your work, feeling your work is aligned with your values, taking pride, appreciating autonomy, enjoying your collegues and being grateful.
Imagine what your ideal successful life would be. You're 96 years old and you've led a very good life. Your loved ones ask how you would define success both personally and professionally.
What predicts success?
Below 25% - IQ. Being intelligent is not the same as being smart.
In addition to analytical skills, success requires
Flexibility
Creativity
Risk taking
Life long learning
Social skills
Resilience
Stanford professor of psychology Carol Dweck : you're more likely to achieve your life goals if you believe your intelligence, talents, and personality are fluid, which means changeable with effort, rather than fixed, which means innate and unchangeable.
Beliefs that propel you forward.
Expertise that is meaningful to you and matters to others.
Self-motivation, especially during setbacks and failures.
Mutually supportive relationships.
W2. The Power of Beliefs
Types of mindset
Fixed mindset
Each person inherits fixed intelligence, talents, and personality traits.
Intelligence, talents, and personality traits stay relatively stable throughout their lives.
Strengths and weaknesses are part of who they are as a person.
More likely to seek out opportunities where they can demonstrate their strengths, and avoid situations that might expose their weaknesses.
Less likely to take risks.
Mistakes are due to a lack of natural ability.
Less likely to seek out and appreciate feedback.
Nature over nurture.
Growth mindset
Nurture over nature.
Intelligence, talents, and personality characteristics are largely learned and can change over time with effort and practice.
Effort, careful planning, and ongoing learning predict people's ability to achieve success.
Take on projects in which they can learn new things.
Take on risky projects.
See mistakes as opportunities for learning.
Seek out negative feedback and persist when faced with hurdles and setbacks.
Be motivated by negative feedback, hurdles, and setbacks.
Stereotypes and prejudice
Small situational queues can have significant impact on performance, particularly when people are anxious about other people's perceptions of their competence.
But also small situational cues such as exposing people to the growth mindset, can also be used to minimize stereotype threat and enhance performance. This especially for people who are exposed to negative stereotypes.
Core self-evaluations
Areas
Self esteem
Our beliefs about our overall worth as a person.
Self efficacy
Our beliefs about our abilities to complete our tasks and achieve our goals.
Locus of control
How much we believe our efforts, rather than fate, luck, or other external influences can have an impact on ourselves, others, and life outcomes.
Emotional stability
Our beliefs about the degree to which we can effectively cope with the ups and downs of everyday life.
General and fundamental assumptions about ourselves and our abilities to achieve our goals. Not in any specific situation.
People with high core self evaluation tend to
Have higher work motivation
Take on more challenging tasks
Enjoy complex work more
Go above and beyond the call of duty
Persist longer
React more constructively to change
Work more positively to others
Feel less stress and burnout
Be more satisfied with life in general
Contribute to their communities
Feel less work/life conflict
Enjoy work more
Perform better
Get higher evaluations
Make more money
W3. The Power of Expertise
Experts
Highest level of performance.
Reputation for this achievement.
Their performance can be objectively measured.
They consistently get far superior results
They acquire their expertise through long periods of focused education, training, and experience.
Advantages
More knowledge = better and faster decisions
Superior skills = consistently better and faster implementation
Develop strategies for overcoming the limitations of memory.
They have more numerous, more varied, and more sophisticated mental representations.
Mental representations
Mental images of what a successful end result should look like, how to get that result, how to assess whether we achieved that result.
Chunks
Small bits of knowledge and skills.
We create mental representations by stringing together chunks of knowledge into meaningful patterns that we use to make sense of situations and perform complex activities.
Advantages
Easier to learn and remember
Easier to mix and match
Becoming expert, through purposeful, deliberate practice
Becoming outstanding in a particular area of expertise, requires that you engage in focused, intensive, and organized practice. It requires delayed gratification and a lot of willpower.
Steps
Identify your purpose.
Create a mental representation of excellence.
Develop your step-by-step strategy.
Practice with precision and push (sometimes with a coach).
Measure your progress (like with SMART goals).
W4. The Power of Motivation
Researchers have identified two kinds of self-motivation that are particularly powerful in predicting success, conscientiousness and grit.
Conscientiousness
People who are conscientious hold themselves to high standards. They figure out what they're supposed to do, how they're supposed to do it and they get it done. Their strength is that you can count on them.
To have both the ability and willingness to fulfill responsibilities. Effort and persistence.
Ability. Can do. Knowledge, skills, and expertise.
Willingness. Will do. The motivation that enables you to turn your knowledge and skills into actions.
Opportunity.
Environmental opportunities and constraints.
Conscientious people
Achievement and goal-oriented
Reliable
Self-motivated, hard-working and self-disciplined
Planfull and organized.
Careful and conventional
Strong sense of duty and integrity
Conscientiousness in extreme levels
Micromanagement and impatience.
Perfectionism.
Excesive rumination when making decisions.
Workaholism
To increase it
Take an assessment
Identify one thing to do to increase it
Remind yourself of your goal daily
What specifically your will do every day
Manage context (environment) by creating structures and habits