Let me start by saying that when I sat down to write this I opened Spotify and learned that Taylor Swift’s catalog is available. While I like most of her stuff, one of my favorite running songs is The Story of Us. I think it has the perfect tempo for running. So happy I get to add it to my running playlist (for the occasions when I run).
Onto more important things…
One of my favorite parts about being a tutor and independent college counselor was helping my students reach their potential. While I have lots of stories about students improving their scores, or getting into their first choice college, there’s one student who is always top of mind when I reflect on my experience: Madison*.
Madison was tall, attractive enough, but everything about her was a bit awkward, which is true of most teenagers despite what television leads us to believe. She was a perfectly average student. I think her parents scheduled time with me not so much to improve her SAT verbal scores — because they seemed to have zero expectations that she was capable of more — but to keep up appearances. Everyone else’s child was being tutored, so why not.
After a few weeks of working together there wasn’t much tangible progress, but I had witnessed moments where it seemed Madison was capable of more, if she was only willing to trust herself. In an attempt to build her confidence, I took a new approach to our sessions. Instead of reading a passage and having her immediately answer the questions, we would pause and talk about the passage for a few minutes. Once I was sure she understood the passage, I would read practice question, but ask Madison to answer using her own words instead of the multiple choice responses supplied by the practice test. When responding in her own words, it was clear Madison knew the answer to the question. And after I confirmed she answered correctly, she almost always found the appropriate printed response.
It took time, but every correct answer was another little win, another micro confidence boost that started to shift the voice in her head from “I can’t,” to “Maybe I can,” to “I definitely can.” Throughout the process you could hear the tone of her voice changing. The way she engaged in conversation about incorrect responses changed. She sat a little taller in her chair. Eventually, we cut out the dialogue and went right from the passage to the practice questions. The results stuck.
While Madison’s 170 point increase wasn’t my largest, it was one of my favorite.
I’ve been thinking about Madison recently because I want more of that in my life.
By “that” I mean I want more opportunities to help people succeed, to have little wins, to reach their potential. I want more tangible results.
Don’t get me wrong, I love working with companies to engage their employees. I love helping them help their employees understand what programs are available to them, why those programs matter, and how those programs can benefit their lives and careers. But in my current role, I’m always one or two steps removed from the results.
So that’s part of why I’m on this month long journey, because I want to figure out how to create more little wins for myself, but I also want to figure out how to help other people experience their own little wins. I’ve got a couple ideas, one of which I’m testing now and shows promise. The few moments of success I’ve experienced while testing this idea have been enough given me the motivation to keeping exploring.
*name changed just because that seemed like the right thing to do.