Do you sometimes feel like you can’t be bothered? Do you wish you had exercised more, learned a new language, or received more education, but you feel like it’s all too much effort?
If so, you probably need more courage and faith in your ability to achieve things. A recent pilot study has raised hope and further research will show whether this new method can help more people.
The key is to tap into our hidden innate potential.
“We have developed a method that can help people develop greater persistence and confidence in their ability to achieve their goals,” says Professor Hermundur Sigmundsson from the Department of Psychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
The key is to tap into our hidden innate potential.
Success depends on many factors
Professor Sigmundsson has been working for several years to discover what exactly allows people to perform at a high level and how to increase their performance. Many different factors come into play.
It’s pretty amazing that we can change our attitude in 35 or 40 minutes.
It is important to have a lot of passion for something and your attitude really makes a difference. You have to believe that you will achieve your goals, that is, believe in growth. Your chances of success also increase if most other aspects of your life are on track.
However, perseverance or “grit” can affect whether you actually start something or see it through.
“I can do this”
An initial sample of 38 Norwegian students participated in a pilot, an exploratory study conducted by Sigmundsson in collaboration with research assistant Håvard Hauge.
- First, the researchers gave the students a questionnaire to see how well they scored on several different factors that influence success, and mapped how good the students felt about themselves overall.
- Students then completed a 35-40 minute long online course, aptly named ‘I CAN’.
- Afterwards, the students completed the same questionnaire again to see if anything had changed.
“After the students completed the online course, we saw a significant change in our determination. It is quite surprising that we can change our attitude in 35-40 minutes,” says Professor Sigmundsson.
Creating an ‘I can’ attitude
For other factors, there were fewer changes, if any. But the willingness to make an effort improved.
“We try to create an ‘I can’ attitude, the belief that they will actually succeed. We also want to equip students with strategies that can help them evoke this feeling when they later find themselves in situations where they need it,” says the Professor Sigmundsson.
Evoking this feeling over and over again can itself strengthen the networks in the brain necessary to develop greater determination over time.
A stronger belief increases the chances of finding a passion
“When you believe that you can really achieve something and are willing to put in the necessary effort, this can increase the likelihood of taking on new challenges. It can increase your courage and give you more opportunities to find what you are passionate about and then help you develop this passion,” says Professor Sigmundsson.
Participants learn that success depends on personal effort and practice. Other research has found that purposeful practice is a key factor in achieving something, that is, practicing doing exactly what you want to be good at.
Helping smooth out differences
Other studies show that when young people are helped to believe that they can be successful, that they can really do something, they often do better in school. This is especially true for students who come from backgrounds with the so-called “lower socioeconomic status”, that is, families with low income or low-prestige jobs.
For example, a study from a senior secondary school in Uganda shows that girls in particular benefit from having female role models. These role models show them that it is actually possible to achieve something difficult. This can help reduce academic gender gaps and help students who struggle the most with academic work.
How to flip a switch
“When people develop greater self-confidence or ‘self-efficacy’, it’s almost like a switch is flipped,” says Professor Sigmundsson.
The course and results support previous studies that have demonstrated the effects of short-term interventions, including a study by David S. Yeager et al. published in Nature in 2019.
The results of this pilot project are very promising, but researchers still need to know more.
They are therefore in the process of carrying out ‘I CAN’ on a much larger scale, this time with almost 1,000 Year 10 students. The results of this latest study are not yet available.