As human beings, we are wired to stay in community. We crave the sense of belonging to communities. We want to be heard. We want to listen to what our best friends are saying. We crave connections.
However, it is also worth noting that not all connections with people can lead to positive outcomes for us (the individual).
This article will cover my reflection on what makes a connection truly desirable. Hopefully, this would help you to prioritise your relationships to intentionally direct your life towards an effective and high-growth trajectory.
Proposition:
Potential Strength of Connection = Collective personal humility * Collective Growth Mindset
In other words, the extent of how conducive for growth a connection can be for both parties is determined mainly by two factors:
- How much each party in the connection is willing to be humble?
- How much each party in the connection is willing to grow and adapt?
To think simply, let’s assume that the values each variable can take are between 0 and 1. The more humble one is, the higher the score. The greater the prevalence of the growth mindset in one’s life, the higher the score. 1 or 100% is the attainment of perfection — which should not actually be attained by any living human being.
Personal humility represents a focus on others rather than the self.
Some manifestations of this are in this non-exhaustive list of behaviors:
- Genuine curiosity and interest in the life of others
- Ability to step out of situations to assess what’s the best action to be taken, in light of interest of others
- Not being so caught up into thinking how one is emotionally affected by situations that one is put in, such as conversations that others are having in a group setting
- Ability to focus on the interests of others first, then on the needs of ourselves
- Ability to remain secure and rooted in one’s values in the face of challenges or ‘bad situations’ (e.g. ridiculed/shamed by others)
Definition of Growth Mindset (with reference to Mindset by Dr. Carol S. Dweck)
“A growth mindset is about believing people can develop their abilities.”
Motivation
Iron sharpens iron — I’m pretty sure most have heard of this.
However, there’s more than iron or smelting that meets the eye.
In my 5-year experience in volunteering with youth, children and young adults, I came to the conclusion that a relationship can make us a better human being only if these two criteria are met: Both parties are focused on others and are aware that we are works in progress.
Simple Illustration
Consider a scenario below.
Shirley and Samuel are friends.
Shirley loves to share about herself and in her conversations with Samuel, she is almost in the centre of them — the conversations are about her interests, her life events, her jokes, etc.
Samuel, on the other hand, loves to listen to Shirley’s raving about her life. He is willing to listen more than speaking, and that really helps him provide support for Shirley.
Question: Given the above information, does the connection between Shirley and Samuel have a high growth potential?
Let’s put the formula in the proposition above to the test.
From the description above, it’s clear that Shirley has a low score for humility, whereas Samuel has a high score. Let’s assume that their average score for humility is 0.50.
We have no information on the growth mindsets of Samuel and Shirley. For now, let’s assume that they have almost perfect growth mindsets (score = 0.99).
This makes the growth potential of the friendship to be 0.50 * 0.99= 0.50.
In other words, the growth potential of the friendship is limited by the combined effort of each partner to stay humble and focused on the needs of the other party. Shirley and Samuel may have a high growth mindset — strong belief that each of them are growing works in progress and that the journey for them as human beings is more important than the destination. However, if the fundamental focus of Shirley is on herself mostly, this prevents her from stepping out to understand Samuel better. This causes Samuel to remain in a constantly inquisitive position in his conversations with Shirley, and most probably the dynamics of this friendship will stay this way. The growth mindset will cause Shirley to be even more vocal about her own sharing, and cause Samuel to be even better listener.
Simply said, without humility, we might be very focused on moving quickly along a fixed direction, without full knowledge that that’s the best direction for us. If Shirley continues to remain closed in listening to Samuel share about his life, she will never know how important it is to listen in conversations. It’s this direction that she has inadvertently chosen, and the lack of humility has shown her a greater illusion of her choice and her control over her situation. It is important to note that not all friendships need to end this way.
The caveat behind the model in the proposition is that it represents a given moment in time, and this moment changes over time. The conscious decisions we are making and will make will determine the course of change of the growth potential of connections. I hope that through reading this article, you would learn the importance of being humble + having a growth mindset in all situations. This would help to strengthen your relationships and the potential benefits you can reap from your relationships, be they weak or strong at different stages of your life.
