IN THIS ISSUE
Most attempts to change direction fail not because of poor strategy or bad timing, but because of beliefs that have never been examined. The stories we carry about what we are capable of, what we deserve, and what is still possible tend to operate quietly below the surface, shaping every decision we make.
This issue looks at where those beliefs come from, why they persist, and what the evidence suggests about changing them. The ideas here draw on research from psychology and neuroscience, as well as my own experience of leaving a thirty-year career in education. Where I am drawing on personal experience rather than published evidence, I have said so clearly.
Mindset is the collection of beliefs you hold about your own abilities and potential. It shapes which risks feel worth taking, which opportunities seem available to you, and how you interpret setbacks when they arrive.
Psychologist Dr Carol Dweck spent decades researching how people respond to challenge and failure. Her findings, set out in her 2006 book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, identified two patterns she describes as the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. These terms have since been applied widely in education, sport, and business, though it is worth noting that her original research focused primarily on children in educational settings. The practical applications here are drawn from my own experience.
A fixed mindset holds that your abilities are largely set. Failure feels like evidence of your limits, so challenges become things to avoid rather than engage with. When I first explored building a business alongside my teaching career, this surfaced immediately: “I’m not a salesperson. I don’t have the right personality for t his.” It felt like a fact. Looking back, it was simply an old belief I had accepted without testing.
A growth mindset holds that abilities develop through effort and experience. Failure becomes feedback. In my observation, the people who made lasting changes to their lives were rarely the most naturally gifted. They were the ones who had decided they were capable of learning, and who kept going when early results were slow.
In practice, yes. The brain filters information constantly, prioritising what it considers relevant to your current goals. Directing your attention deliberately changes what you find.
A straightforward example from my own experience. At a company leadership event, a new incentive was announced: a BMW X5 for highperformers. I had to ask a colleague what one looked like. I had no memory of seeing one on the road.
On the drive home that evening, one pulled up directly in front of me at the traffic lights. Then another passed me on the motorway. Then another. Those cars had always been there. My brain simply had not registered them as relevant until that moment.
The same dynamic applies to the evidence we collect about what is possible. When we focus on what is not working, we tend to gather more confirmation of it. When we look deliberately for examples of what is achievable, we begin to find those instead.
I applied this directly in my classroom. Rather than responding only to what children were doing wrong, I made a habit of noticing and naming what they were doing right. That single shift changed the atmosphere of the room, for the pupils and for me. It is a personal observation rather than a controlled finding, but one I saw repeated consistently over many years.
Based on both research and personal experience, yes. It requires sustained effort and does not happen quickly, but the evidence suggests it is genuinely possible at any age.
Research into neuroplasticity, the brain’s capacity to reorganise and form new connections throughout life, indicates that repeated thoughts and behaviours strengthen particular neural pathways over time. This is broadly the same mechanism behind habit formation. The implication is that limiting beliefs are not fixed truths about who you are. They are patterns reinforced through repetition, and patterns can be redirected through deliberate effort.
When I was wrestling with the decision to leave education, my mind returned repeatedly to the same scripts: “You need security. You can’t start over at your age. What will people think?” Understanding these as reinforced patterns rather than facts gave me something I had not expected: a sense that change was genuinely available to me.
I started in small ways. I read books that broadened my sense of what was achievable. I replaced the habit of absorbing collective anxiety in the staff room with a podcast on my commute. I reviewed my goals each morning before the day’s pressures could crowd them out. None of this felt significant at the time. Over months, it compounded, and my thinking shifted in ways I had not anticipated.
Start by noticing the statements you treat as settled facts about yourself, particularly the ones you have never thought to question.
For years, my internal script included: “I’m not a natural leader.” “I’m too old to learn new things.” “I need the security of a regular salary.” Each felt entirely reasonable. I had what seemed like evidence for all of them.
But the evidence we collect tends to confirm what we already believe. We notice what fits our existing view and set aside what does not. When I began looking for examples of people who had made similar transitions successfully, I found them readily. The evidence had always been available. I simply had not been looking for it.
The most useful question I have found is not “Can I do this? ” It is: “Is the story I’m telling myself actually true, or is it just familiar?” Those tend to lead to very different answers.
MY WIFE, AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE, ON A SATURDAY MORNING I ALMOST MISSED ENTIRELY
It was said as a joke. We all laughed. But it landed differently on the inside. I had been physically present in that house for years. I was almost never truly there. My mind was always elsewhere, running through budgets, staffing problems, and the week ahead.
That moment began a process. Not a dramatic overnight transformation, but a gradual, deliberate reexamination of the beliefs I had been carrying without questioning. The change that followed was not a lightning bolt. It was a chain, built one small link at a time.
YOUR ACTION STEP
For the next seven days, pay attention to your internal dialogue. When you catch yourself thinking a limiting thought, pause and ask three questions:
Each evening, write down three things that went well that day. They do not need to be significant. A useful conversation, a task completed, a moment where you responded differently than you might have before. The act of recording them trains your attention towards progress rather than problems.
Do this for a week and notice what shifts.
HENRY FORD
What is one belief you have been treating as a fact about yourself that you have never really tested? Hit reply and share it. I read every response, and sometimes the most useful step is simply saying it out loud.
Keep climbing, one step at a time!
Derek Thomas is a former headteacher, entrepreneur, and author of From the Classroom to the Climb. He coaches educators, leaders, and individuals who feel stuck, helping them find purpose, build resilience, and create lives that feel like their own. All profits from his book support orphaned children at Stella Maris Primary School in Tanzania.
derek-thomas.co.uk
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