How Does Mindset Affect a Creative Glass Artist in Business?
The other day, I had someone contact Black Cat Glass Designs to ask me how long it would take them to learn stained glass techniques. As always with such question, the short answer is ‘it depends’ but it got me thinking about mindset because mindset is everywhere at the moment, and mindset, particularly when you are learning, is important.
Me, in the beginning
You may have heard of the phrases ‘growth mindset’ and/or ‘fixed mindset’. In a nutshell, a growth mindset means you want to learn and you think you can do pretty much anything if you put your mind and enough effort into it. In contrast, a fixed mindset means you tend to think talent is innate, a natural ability and if you don’t have that natural ability, you will fail. If you are going to fail, what’s the point in trying?
I, Becci Meakins, was a fixed mindset guru. At school, I was useless at rounders (actually, still am but I can honestly say I don’t give a shit about that now…) But I was also useless at art, particularly drawing. I remember one lesson when we had to draw a head to represent our minds and what we were thinking about. For example, a calculator for maths or a dictionary for language.
I just drew a massive question mark.
I recall the teacher coming round and saying to me ‘is that all that’s in your head?’ No doubt, all that was in her head at the time was the need to be massively sarcastic and acerbic, but that aside, the reason I only had a question mark in my head was because I couldn’t bloody draw anything else.
And that’s where I stayed with drawing. I can’t do it and that’s that.
But natural talent does exist, doesn’t it?
Yes, probably, natural talent does exist (although some psychologists argue against this idea: see Oliver James’s book ‘Not in your Genes’ for that argument). My thinking though was that if I couldn’t do anything straight away, there was little point in even learning because in my fixed mindset, it was natural ability, or nothing.
Fast-forward a bit
In view of the fact that I was so fixed, you may be asking if it turned out I had a natural ability for fused glass art. The answer is: no. So why did I try it? I very nearly didn’t. I had already assumed that I’d be the worst in the class. But for some reason, something made me sign up. In a rare moment of positivity (welI, my version of positivity), I thought ‘if I am the worst, I will never see the others in the class again, anyway’. And besides, Rich was on the course with me so if I was the worst, I could always swap my work with his…
My mistakes: All-round idiocy or par for the course?
When I made mistakes with kiln-formed glass, initially, I felt like chucking it all in. Sentences such as ‘people like me just don’t have success’ or ‘why don’t you just go back to bed, you useless peasant’ haunted me for a while. But then curiosity got the better of me: why did that particular piece stick to the kiln shelf? Why did that strip of glass bulge out? Why has that slumped so unevenly? I would go off to find out the answers. And, as I learned the answers, I used it to my advantage. Suddenly, the reasons why things went wrong became another chance to learn, and with learning, I was improving.
This fused glass vessel here was created out of another piece of work which stuck to the kiln furniture and cracked. I not only learnt my lesson (kiln wash was too thin), but also wondered what I could do with the glass which had cracked. This glass art piece wouldn’t have existed if I hadn’t made that mistake. It’s a cliché that you learn from mistakes but you really do – but the learning only really comes if you adopt more of a growth mindset.
To sum-up
So going back to my initial enquirer about how long does it take to learn stained glass. My answer should have been – it depends on your mindset. If you don’t expect to be brilliant from the off, and are prepared to stick at the niggling, annoyances that come at the start, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t learn quickly. Overall though, give it a go, because how will you know, otherwise?
As for me, I am waxing lyrical about a growth mindset but I still have a fixed mindset in many respects. It’s something I am continuing to work on. My drawings look like they were done by a 2-year old because I am still terrible at drawing. And rounders.
(Note: I had further help with my mindset from the brilliant Lauren Malone from Lemon Tree Coaching and Development. Click here to visit her website).