As a society, we unfortunately tend to look down on effort and rather praise natural ability instead. This applies especially to how we raise our kids. Often, we praise kids using fixed traits such as “smart,” which can be harmful because it leads to a fear of failure. When you attach a person to a label/term, you are attaching to their value and self-worth, meaning if they fail once, their whole world comes crumbling down. Instead, praise the effort and action put into achieving those goals, this promotes building resilience and motivation. Some kids were known as the geniuses in class but did not achieve what we all expected they would, while the kids labeled not so naturally “gifted” or even “dumb” achieve more than one could ever imagine. This is because the “gifted” kid stuck onto that term for dear life; he was afraid of losing that label, so he feared trying anything challenging that might expose the very human part of him called failing. Whereas the “not-so-gifted” kid had nothing to lose because, as we know, you can never fear losing something you never had. To the fixed-minded,  internalizing a certain label doesn’t feel like “I failed at something”; it feels like “I am a failure“.