Chapter 1: Getting in the Zone

Before you ask, yes, there will be lots of tips and tricks throughout this book, but first we have to talk about mindsets. Without the right mindset, all the tools in the world won’t help you be successful (just think of how many projects you started but didn’t finish after you bought all the stuff you needed…now it’s just collecting dust). For these tools to work, you have to want to learn. That isn’t always easy, especially when you may not be totally sure why you’re here, or the reason may not be 100% yours (think back to Noah’s experience in the introduction). Getting into the zone means figuring those things out, opening yourself up to new experiences, and pushing the boundaries of your comfort zone. As the famous Einstein quote goes, “If we knew what we were doing, we wouldn’t call it research, would we?”

The ultimate goal of university isn’t to get a piece of paper or get a job – it’s to become the best learner you can be. By focusing on that goal, you set yourself up to be effective in a variety of work and social environments, as well as becoming the kind of person others turn to for leadership in this rapidly changing world. No one knows exactly what the future holds (e.g., the emergence of AI in 2022, anyone?), so the most powerful thing you can do to prepare is become the best learner possible and enjoy the ride!

Becoming Aware of the World Around You

Before you can ask meaningful questions, solve authentic problems, or develop new ideas, you must first notice what is happening around you. This may sound deceptively simple, but becoming an active learner begins with a deliberate shift in attention. Too often, students move through their days on “autopilot”—completing assignments, attending classes, and checking items off a to-do list without truly engaging with the world they inhabit. Learners, in contrast, cultivate the habit of paying attention. They observe. They notice patterns. They become intrigued by inconsistencies. They recognize that even ordinary experiences contain opportunities for discovery.

Awareness is the foundation upon which curiosity is built. You cannot become curious about something you have not noticed. Likewise, you cannot formulate meaningful questions if nothing has captured your attention. Every significant inquiry begins with a moment of observation: Why does that happen? I wonder why those two things are different. That doesn’t fit with what I expected. These small moments of noticing are often the first steps toward deeper learning.

Developing awareness requires slowing down in a world that constantly competes for your attention. Smartphones, social media, and the pressure to multitask encourage us to skim rather than observe. Inquiry demands the opposite. It requires us to look more closely, listen more carefully, and resist the temptation to accept the first explanation that comes to mind. Becoming aware means engaging all of your senses and allowing yourself to be surprised by what you encounter.

Try it right now! What are your senses telling you about your surroundings? What do you smell? What do you hear? What do you taste? What do you see? How does your environment feel? For me, I smell citrus cleaner, hear the a/c running, taste the mint toothpaste I just used to brush my teeth, and see my TBR (to be read) stack on the table. To my surprise, what I am paying the most attention to is the tag on the inside left seam of my shirt, which is scratching against my skin and starting to drive me to distraction! Where are the scissors??

Observation is far more than simply looking at something (Kraus, 2024). Effective observation involves purposeful attention, interpretation, and reflection. Skilled observers actively distinguish between what they actually see and what they assume they see, making observation an important cognitive process rather than a passive activity.

John Dewey (1933) argued that genuine inquiry begins with an experience of uncertainty or doubt rather than with the simple accumulation of information. When something interrupts our expectations, we become motivated to investigate and make sense of it. In other words, awareness is not merely seeing what there is; it is recognizing that something deserves further attention. This is the moment when learning becomes personal because the question now belongs to you rather than to your teacher or textbook.

Similarly, research on question-asking demonstrates that inquiry begins when learners recognize gaps in their own understanding. Question-asking is one of the most powerful learning strategies available because it allows learners to direct their own learning (Ronfard, Zambrana, Hermansen, & Kelemen, 2018). Importantly, they argue that questions emerge only after individuals become aware that they do not yet know or understand something. Awareness, therefore, is the catalyst that transforms passive exposure into active learning.

Fortunately for us, awareness is a habit that can be developed. You might begin by deliberately observing your surroundings for five minutes each day. Notice something you have never paid attention to before. Listen carefully during a conversation instead of planning what you will say next. Read a news article and ask yourself what information is missing. Watch how people solve everyday problems. These small acts of intentional observation gradually retrain your brain to seek patterns, anomalies, and opportunities for inquiry.

These kinds of awareness activities strengthen your ability to sustain attention. This is particularly valuable in a world of constant digital notifications and short-form social media, which encourage rapid shifts in attention rather than prolonged focus. Mindfulness and awareness practices can improve attentional control (Jha et al., 2007), while frequent media multitasking has been associated with greater difficulty filtering distractions and maintaining focus (Ophir et al., 2009). Becoming more aware of and engaged with the environment around you increases not only your awareness but also your attention span, something we can all use in today’s fast-paced digital world.

Bottom Line: The transition from student to learner does not begin with knowing more. It begins with noticing more. Once you become aware of the richness and complexity of the world around you, curiosity naturally follows. And where curiosity grows, inquiry soon begins.

Curiosity: Being and Becoming

The good news is that almost all of us enter the world curious. Long before children learn to read or write, we explore our environment by looking, touching, tasting (dead flies do look a lot like chocolate chips to a two-year-old), manipulating objects (including stuffing raisins up our noses!), and asking an endless stream of “why?” questions. Curiosity is a fundamental driver of human learning. Piaget (1952) argued that children actively construct knowledge by exploring and making sense of their surroundings, rather than passively absorbing information. More recently, Gopnik (1999) and Schulz (2012) described young children as “little scientists” who naturally generate hypotheses, test ideas, and revise their understanding based on evidence. Curiosity is an innate trait that we, as humans, have used for thousands of years as a way to develop and survive in the world (Kidd & Hayden, 2015).

This natural inclination to investigate the unknown is what we refer to as being curious—an intrinsic interest that arises spontaneously from novelty, surprise, or personal fascination. We do not have to teach infants or young children to be curious; they arrive with a remarkable desire and willingness to explore and understand their world. That’s good because from the moment they are born, they have a lot to learn and not all of it can be directly taught to them by adults!

Unfortunately, as children progress through school, opportunities for self-directed questioning may become overshadowed by an emphasis on finding the correct answer, succeeding on assessments, and completing given tasks (Deci et al., 1999; Engel, 2011). Many of us involved in writing this book were told as kids that we asked too many questions, were too chatty, or that our questions weren’t relevant to that day’s lesson plan. As a result, many students arrive at higher education accustomed to looking to teachers or textbooks to define what is worth learning rather than generating or valuing their own questions (Hidi & Renninger, 2006). This means that while making space for and reigniting that natural way of “being curious” is an important first step, it is only a part of becoming an effective life-long learner.

Nobody is naturally curious about everything, and that’s okay. But whether we like it or not, entering higher education (and pretty much any other life situation) requires us to engage with subjects we do not choose, concepts we might find difficult, and topics that we deem irrelevant at least at first glance. Being able to be an effective learner in these circumstances requires a different capability that we call becoming curious. Becoming curious is the ability to generate interest intentionally, even when the topic is unfamiliar or appears uninteresting. Rather than waiting for curiosity to arise spontaneously, as a learner you can actively create the conditions that allow it to develop. This is an important learning skill because curiosity is associated with greater engagement, improved memory, and increased persistence when learning becomes difficult, which we all know it will (Grossnickle, 2016). Neuroscientists have shown that states of curiosity activate the brain’s reward pathways, increasing dopamine (the “happy” neurotransmitter), which in turn enhances hippocampus-dependent learning and memory (to learn more, take an introduction to psychology course!). As a result, people are more likely to remember information they encounter while they are curious (Gruber et al., 2014). Knowing this may help you understand why you can remember your favourite music artists’ birthdays but not the concepts you learned last week in your least favourite class.

Think about learning statistics and research methods. When I (Dr. MacKinnon) took my first research methods course, I was NOT at all excited about internal validity or regression analysis, and as a professor of 22 years and counting, I can safely say the majority of my students feel the same. Yet, like myself, many eventually become genuinely interested once they understand how strong research methodology and statistical thinking help answer questions they care about. Our curiosity was not present at the beginning—it developed through experience, relevance, and growing competence. The same process can occur in virtually any discipline.

So how do you become curious?

One easy way is to look for personal relevance. Ask yourself: How does this connect to my life, future career, or something I already care about? Even abstract concepts usually have practical applications if you look carefully enough. For example, I had tea one day with a student who was struggling through a course on Greek and Roman mythology but had found a way to become curious about it by linking the course material to their natural curiosity and love for Marvel movies! I learned a lot about the MCU during that conversation, but more importantly, I learned how its lore related to something I was naturally curious about: Greek and Roman mythology!

A second strategy is to generate your own questions. Instead of asking, “What do I need to memorize?” or “Will this be on the test?” ask, “Why does this work?” “What problem does this solve?” or “What would happen if this idea were wrong?” Creating questions transforms you from a passive recipient of information into an active investigator (Rothstein & Santana, 1999). You’re going to learn an easy and effective way of doing this later in this book!

A third strategy is to embrace productive uncertainty. Many students become uncomfortable when they do not immediately understand something. Curious learners view uncertainty differently. They see confusion not as evidence of failure but as an invitation to investigate. Loewenstein’s (1999) research on curiosity suggests that recognizing a gap in your knowledge is precisely what motivates deeper learning.

Finally, remember that interest often follows effort rather than preceding it. We often assume that we must already be interested in a topic before we invest time and energy in learning it. In reality, interest frequently develops through engagement, growing knowledge, and increasing confidence. As your understanding deepens, patterns begin to emerge, connections become visible, and topics that initially seemed dry or unfamiliar can become intellectually satisfying (Hidi & Renninger, 2006). These “AHA!” moments are really satisfying and help you keep your internal motivation strong. Similarly, sustained effort and deliberate practice allow learners to develop competence, transforming challenging activities into more meaningful and rewarding experiences (Ericsson et al., 1993).

Being curious is a gift. Becoming curious is a skill. The first may happen naturally, but the second is a habit that you can develop throughout your life, starting TODAY. Students wait to become interested before they learn. Learners discover that finding ways to become curious is often what creates interest.

Your Choice to Inquire

If curiosity is the “desire to inquire”, then inquiry or asking/answering questions, is the tool we need to fulfill that goal. While closely intertwined, it’s important to understand that curiosity and inquiry are not the same. Curiosity is the underpinning drive of inquiry, whereas inquiry is a skill that we can harness and refine over our lifetime as learners (Šmida & Čipková, 2026).

As we age and begin to understand more about the world, it’s common to feel like we have it all figured out, and there is no real need to inquire about the things we still don’t understand. But this is simply not true. The world we live in is vast and full of information. Try as we might, no one will ever be able to know everything there is to know. This is why it is so important to recognize that being an inquirer is an active choice we must make every day. It is choosing to continue to be curious, to continue wanting to know more, and to continue asking questions. It is learning to become comfortable with not being satisfied with what we already know, and actively seeking to know more. It’s also about being critical of the answers we find and creative with what we do with them. Choosing inquiry means to continue learning, assessing the information we find, and prioritizing the things we do not yet understand.

Tessa’s Experience of Building Trust in Inquiry

As students, the idea of actively engaging in inquiry can often seem very intimidating at first interaction, especially if, like me, it is something you have very little practice with. During my time as a high school student, inquiry was rarely encouraged. Questions around the “why” and importance of work I was completing often were not valued or appreciated. This meant that walking into my “Intro to Social Psychology” class with Dr. Stacey MacKinnon, and her prompting the class to create a project about anything we wanted, left me confused about where to start. Not only did she not tell us what the topic was, but she wouldn’t even give us parameters on the number of words our work should be or what the final project should look like. All she said was, “If you have more to say, keep writing. If you’re starting to repeat yourself or make things up or BS me, stop writing.” The curiosity project is a staple assignment in many of Stacey’s courses, and it provides you with an invaluable and uncommon opportunity to explore a subject of your choosing in a manner you feel it deserves to be represented. Having little experience with this type of freedom in academia, this can be intimidating, especially when you are most familiar with work that requires specific tasks of you. Trust me, it can be hard to know what to do with all this freedom. However, if you are able to trust yourself and your instructor, this opportunity for inquiry can make you both more curious people and better learners.

Inquiry, especially when it is a new skill, requires a certain level of trust both in yourself and those you are working with. When beginning the curiosity project in Social Psychology, one of the very first things Dr. MacKinnon told us was that she would not be providing any grades on the project until it was completed, and that we just had to trust that if we put in the work, it would pay off. At the time, I absolutely hated this. I could not even begin to understand a course where you put so much work into a project without a mark. I questioned how we would know how (or even what) to improve if we were not getting any marks. I have since come to realize that was the whole point. She did not want us to focus on getting the best grade or doing what we believed she wanted. She wanted us to use feedback from both her and our peers to improve how we inquired and learned, not our grades.

I’ve come to realize that the entire point of the project was to help us be better learners and trust that the guidance and perspective we were receiving would lead us to better knowledge and, thus, a greater grade. It was never about having the best finished product for a mark, but instead, it was about the process of learning and inquiry we developed along the way. It wasn’t easy, but throughout the course I worked really hard to not only trust Dr. Mackinnon and my peers, but more importantly, I learned to trust myself. I had to trust that I was learning and prioritizing what I valued most. I had to realize that I could trust my own curiosity and skills as an inquirer. That I could step away from trying to check the boxes of what I assumed my professor wanted and work to gain what I felt I needed to know.

Fear of Failure

What held me, Tessa, back initially was fear of failure, which I saw as the possibility of getting a low grade. No one likes to fail, so understandably, our desire to avoid failure plays an important role in our learning, motivation, and well-being. Many of us experience this fear in academic contexts, which can lead to worry about underperformance, judgement, or falling short of expectations. Small amounts of concern are often needed for motivation, but excessive amounts can cause avoidance, limit academic enjoyment, and lower well-being. Having this fear in an academic environment can cause procrastination, perfectionism, and lack of engagement. However, this fear of failing is not only tied to academic performance but also linked to both identity and self-concept. It is difficult for us to not see failure as an attack on our sense of self when we view success as an important factor in our self-worth.

Fear of failure can cause chronic stress, burnout, and mental health issues (van Vilet & De Caluwé, 2026). Aside from these possible long-term outcomes, it can also negatively impact the learning process. This often leads us to unconscious self-sabotage (aka self-handicapping) to protect our self-worth and avoid negative emotions, even when we are actually capable of succeeding. This can include:

• Procrastination by delaying tasks as an excuse for poor performance;
• Surface-level learning to limit chances of being wrong;
• Lack of participation due to fear of judgement;
• Burnout from constant stress of avoiding failure;
• Over-striving to reach perfection.

While these fears are impactful in the classroom, they also reach past our academic contexts and affect almost all aspects of daily life. Current research demonstrates that avoiding failure stunts the kind of trait development that is important for personal growth, such as risk-taking, creativity and resilience. Repeated experience of failure without proper coping can lead to a loss of purpose and emotional exhaustion (Edwards & Ashkanasy, 2018). These tolls can begin to seep into other areas of our lives, impacting life satisfaction, physical health, and well-being.

Although many of us internalize a fear of not succeeding, it can actually be an excellent teacher if we have the right kind of mindset. Though it feels awful in the moment, recognizing how we can learn from failing makes us resilient, adaptable, and deepens our understanding. When failure (or even near failure) occurs, you can choose to:

• Reframe failure as feedback. Failure is not an attack on your abilities; instead, see it as a way to learn and improve;
• Practice self-compassion. Treat yourself the way you would treat a friend or loved one, with kindness and understanding;
• Set process-oriented goals. Take some weight off your shoulders by focusing on effort over outcome;
• Build emotional regulation skills. This helps control the relationship between academic satisfaction and fear of failure; deep breathing, journaling, and cognitive reconstruction can be valuable tools in developing these skills;
• Challenge perfectionism. Learn to be okay with mistakes and see them as opportunities for growth;
• Seek supportive communities. Find others who also want to see failure as growth and support one another.

Failure is a part of living, and trying to avoid it causes us more harm than good. While many of us may fear failure, it is much more valuable to see failing as an opportunity for growth rather than a criticism of our abilities.

Collaboration Over Competition

It is almost human nature, our desire to compete with one another. I mean, we do it all the time, in sports and video games, so it is no wonder that this mindset has carried over to our work and schooling. While there is nothing wrong with a little competition from time to time, there is a lot that can be said for the benefits of prioritizing collaboration with others. Collaborative learning can actually have psychological, academic, and social benefits for students (Laal and Mohammad Ghodsi, 2012). Having a mindset that prioritizes collaboration over competition can help you to gain broader perspectives in your learning and share insights with others that can aid in your development of valuable knowledge and skills. Now, I know that in a school environment where you are marked by numbers and you must compete with others for so many things like admissions, scholarships, etc., prioritizing collaboration can be difficult. It is easy to fall into a pattern of comparison when you are constantly being assessed. However, this does not negate the amount of benefit and growth you can receive through collaboration. Although the university environment does not always breed a culture of collaboration, this does not mean you cannot build this for yourself. Give your best effort to learning from the people around you and try to think of all the amazing things that can be done when you collaborate.

Growth Mindset

Having a growth mindset is a key factor in our ability to reap the benefits of failure. The growth mindset, as a way of explaining how we view our abilities and how these impact motivation, learning, and achievement, is a component of mindset theory developed by Stanford psychologist Dr. Carol Dweck (2006). She distinguishes between two unique types of mindsets: fixed mindset and growth mindset. Her mindset theory says that we all have internal beliefs about what intelligence and ability are or can be. Decades of research stemming from studies on student motivation and achievement led to Dweck’s observation that some individuals have a tendency to bounce back from failure, wanting to try again, while others are crushed by the smallest taste of defeat. She argues that when we believe that intelligence and ability are fixed and unchanging, it leads us to seek validation and spaces where our current skills are what is needed. This is called a fixed mindset. There can be short-term benefits to this kind of outlook, like a need to avoid failing; however, the consequences of this in the long term are far more significant. Having a fixed mindset can cause challenge avoidance and reduced resilience, both of which diminish motivation and self-esteem, limiting learning in the process.

The mindset we are focused on is the growth mindset. When we carry this kind of mindset, we believe that intelligence and abilities can change; they grow over time. This means we are more likely to embrace challenges, continue in difficult situations, and learn from failure. Living with a growth mindset can give us a feeling of greater control over outcomes, leading to many positive impacts such as increased motivation, resilience and improved mental health. While important to success, it’s also important to understand that this kind of thinking does not come naturally to most, and it requires effort, self-awareness, and even a shift in strong beliefs to develop and maintain. Unfortunately, many of the academic and professional environments we find ourselves a part of do not reward a growth mindset, which can make developing one even more difficult, but not impossible.

Mindsets are not static concepts, though; they can grow and change over time. This means even though some of us may be more prone to having a growth mindset, that does not mean that those of us who do not naturally gravitate towards this way of thinking cannot develop it. There are a variety of things we can do to evolve and maintain a growth mindset over time:

• Seeing difficulties as growth opportunities;
• Prioritizing effort over outcome;
• Using feedback to improve instead of considering it as a sign of failure;
• Seeing failure as a normal part of learning;
• Creating or seeking environments that support your growth;
• Using growth-focused wording regularly;
• Reflecting on your learning to help remain in the headspace of a growth mindset.

It’s important to remember, though, that while a positive thing, growth mindsets do have their limits, especially if we are unable to let go of a goal or journey that is no longer aligned with our values and well-being, or is just not possible anymore. Take it from me, someone who could not let go of the idea of being a clinical psychologist for the entirety of my psychology degree, even when I did not really feel aligned with that career anymore. I even started my fourth year ready to conquer anything I needed to do to reach that goal, including applying to complete an honours degree I was not truly interested in. I was struggling through that application for months and assumed I just needed a better mindset and to understand it was simply a learning opportunity. It was not until I started my applications for a Bachelor of Social Work (what I truly wanted to do) that I realized my honours application was not hard to get done because it was challenging, but because it was not what I wanted. So, yes, sometimes challenges are things we should learn from, but they can also be signs that it is time to let go of what we thought we wanted for something new. To have an effective growth mindset, we need the ability to recognize when it is time to move on from a path that is no longer serving its purpose. This can be hard to recognize at first; however, there are a few signs that we can use to identify when it is time to move on:

• When there is continuous effort and reaching out for support, but outcomes are only negative;
• When you lose purpose or passion for trying;
• When it harms your physical or mental well-being;
• When a new door opens for change or growth.

Unlike a fixed mindset where a single sign of failure means immediately moving on, transitioning to a new goal in a growth mindset comes after sustained efforts and changes.

Mindset theory is an important aspect of our academic success and the rewards we value as students. Unfortunately, many of us are more familiar with environments that reward fixed mindsets, which can often lead us to internalize that perspective as our truth. But we are not stuck with a fixed mindset; we can choose change. With time and sustained effort, we can develop a strong growth mindset to help us succeed in academics and build a more fulfilling life. Check out Carol Dweck’s Power of Yet TED Talk for more inspiration! https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve/transcript