Gifted Slacker

Just a short quote, because, before I say anything, I want you all to go read the whole article:

Subsequent studies revealed that the most persistent students do not ruminate about their own failure much at all but instead think of mistakes as problems to be solved. At the University of Illinois in the 1970s I, along with my then graduate student Carol Diener, asked 60 fifth graders to think out loud while they solved very difficult pattern-recognition problems. Some students reacted defensively to mistakes, denigrating their skills with comments such as “I never did have a good rememory,” and their problem-solving strategies deteriorated.

Does this remind you of anyone?

I know a lot of people, myself included, that suffer from these problems to some extent. It’s ironic that our parents thought they were being supportive, while they firmly undermined our success.

This kind of thing is so hard to change. I struggle with it a lot, with varying success. I want to improve so many things about myself, and this is probably the most important.

How do you tackle this?