That’s No Hill for a Stepper

Dr. Baker will be taking a "summer break" from writing the next few weeks. Here is one of our favorites from a few years ago celebrating the wisdom of her father.

Rarely one to be discouraged about any undertaking, my father was fond of saying, “That’s no hill for a stepper.” I believe the first time I heard him say this I was about 12 or 13 and we were hiking in the Rockies, but thereafter I know he repeated it on a number of other occasions as well. In fact, it was a frequent theme. No matter what the challenge, he figured that if you kept putting one foot in front of the other (or didn’t give up on solving the problem), you could accomplish a lot more than you ever thought possible.

In Mindset, researcher Carol Dweck comments on the importance of perspective over and above one’s intelligence and/or innate ability. Dweck notes that how one thinks about a challenge or problem is far more important than aptitude or cognitive ability. She set out to study how children and adults handle failure and was surprised to learn that a number of people met “failure” with an attitude of excitement rather than discouragement. These peculiar folks (including children) approached setbacks with responses like “Oh boy, I just love a good challenge” or “I wonder what I can learn from this.”

It occurs to me that this “mindset” is very helpful when we are trying to change or improve upon our relationship skills. It’s easy to be discouraged when some new approach doesn’t work the way we want. It’s less demanding to say to ourselves (and others), “This stuff will never work!” or, “I’m no good at this.”

Or, as Dweck suggests, we could say, “Well, that didn’t go quite the way I thought, but I’ll do better next time.”

We could tell our co-workers, spouse, friend, or child, “I’m trying to get better at … listening . . . not being defensive . . . saying what I mean . . . (you fill in the blank). I know I’m not to where I want to be, but if you keep giving me feedback and let me practice, I know I’ll get better at this communication thing.”

Now that, I think my dad would say, is an attitude that will keep you “stepping” up lots of hills and perhaps even a few mountains.

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