Hayley Barker is the author of best-selling horror/circus book Show Stopper and for the release of the sequel: Show Stealer, I’ve teamed up with Scholastic on their blog tour. For this post, Barker has written a piece on growth mindset and she shares with us, her thoughts on her childhood and how the mindset that she had whilst growing up, shaped how she is today.

Thank you to Scholastic for sending me an unsolicited copy of Show Stealer, and thank you to Hayley Barker for writing this incredible piece of writing.

There has been lot of focus in the education system over recent years on the importance of developing a growth mindset. But what is a growth mindset, and how is it different from a fixed mind set? And isn’t this just more jargon, just another concept that people will latch onto for a while until the next trendy buzz word comes along?

People with a fixed mindset regard intelligence as being inherent. If you are lucky enough to be good at something naturally, that’s great, if not, move on; there’s not a lot you can do about it anyway. Those with a positive growth mindset see intelligence differently. For them, it’s fluid: something which will grow and develop through hard work and determination.

A few months ago, I returned for a visit to my old secondary school and asked my mum to dig out my old school photos to show the students. As I looked at the girl grinning up at me proudly in her school uniform, I wondered what she, or anyone who knew her then, would say if someone had told them that she’d be returning nearly thirty years later as a visiting author. I don’t think she’d believe it; I don’t think anyone would. I wasn’t the best in my class at writing, I didn’t shine in a way that made it clear to everyone that one day my books would be published in England and translated into several other languages too.

I was well into my thirties when I decided that I wanted to get a book published and that I’d make it happen, no matter what it took. Realising, suddenly, that I had to give this nove –writing game a real try, or I’d look back one day and regret it. It will happen, I told myself, if I work really, really hard and if I learn and grow and try and try and try.

I clung to that belief through everything: through the difficult and demanding practice of writing itself (which I loved, regardless.); through applying to agents and dealing with rejections; through the submission process; through making the changes my agent and editor asked for. Through revising, revising, revising.

I don’t think there’ll be an emotional high in my life again like the one I had when I first found out that my story was being published. It was such a gift.  And yet, it wasn’t an unasked for gift that somebody had given me, wrapped in a bow and placed on my lap. It was a gift I had given myself. Through work and determination and conviction. Through making sure that my work was the best it could be. For giving all I had in me, and a bit more than that sometimes.

And that’s why I believe that developing a growth mind set is the most important thing anyone can do, ever. Not just children in schools preparing for exams but their teachers, their parents, their football coach. It’s been vital for me on my journey to becoming a published author, but I bet it’s been vital to every successful sports star, surgeon, doctor, artist, stock broker, because I bet they’ve all got one, even if they don’t know it. You can’t achieve anything without a growth mindset but if you have one, you can reach for the stars and hold them in your hand.

Again, thank you to Scholastic for working with me this month, and I look forward to meeting Hayley at YALC. (I’m writing this a day before YALC starts so it makes sense in my head, even though when this post is published, it’s going to be the 2nd August and YALC will be long over *cries*)