Encouraging a Calm and Curious Mindset
Encouraging a Calm and Curious Mindset 🌱
As a mentor, your approach shapes how your mentee experiences challenges and learning. When you model calmness and curiosity, you help your mentee feel safe to ask questions, make mistakes, and develop into a confident problem-solver.
In this lesson, you’ll learn:
- Normalize asking questions so mentees feel safe to clarify and explore
- Respond to mistakes with composure and encouragement, turning them into learning opportunities
- Model thoughtful, step-by-step problem-solving to demonstrate how to ask targeted, productive questions
❓Making Questions and Problem-Solving Safe and Expected
Curiosity is the engine of growth, but many new engineers worry that asking questions will make them look unprepared. You can change this by actively inviting questions and responding with encouragement.
For example, if your mentee asks a basic question, avoid dismissive responses. Instead, try saying, “That’s a great question. Everyone wonders about that at first.” This signals that curiosity is valued, not judged. Below is a table with additional scenarios and responses that help create a safe space for mentees to ask questions:
| Situation | Dismissive Response | Non-Judgemental, Curiosity-Fostering Response |
|---|---|---|
| Mentee asks a basic question | "You should know this already." | "That’s a great question. Everyone wonders about that at first." |
| Mentee asks something you just explained | "Weren’t you listening?" | "No problem, let’s go over it again together." |
| Mentee is unsure about a concept | "It’s simple, just Google it." | "It’s totally normal to be unsure. Let’s break it down together." |
| Mentee asks a question in a group setting | "We’ve covered this before, moving on." | "Thanks for bringing that up. Let’s make sure everyone’s clear." |
| Mentee admits they don’t know something | "Really? You don’t know that?" | "That’s alright. Nobody knows everything. Let’s figure it out." |
| Mentee asks for clarification | "It’s obvious if you think about it." | "Good question. Let’s walk through it step by step." |
You can also normalize questions by sharing your own uncertainties or asking questions in group settings. For instance: “I’m not sure either — let’s figure it out together.” This shows that learning is a team effort and that nobody is expected to know everything.
Your habits as a mentor are powerful teaching tools. When you face a challenge, think aloud so your mentee can see your process. For example: “I’m seeing this error, so my first question is: did anything change in the code or environment recently?” or “What do we know is working, and where does it start to break?”
Guide your mentee to reflect on their own process with prompts like: “What have you tried so far?” or “Who else might have context on this?” Over time, these habits help your mentee approach challenges with curiosity and confidence, rather than anxiety.
By actively inviting questions, modeling curiosity, and demonstrating step-by-step problem-solving, you help your mentee feel safe to explore, ask questions, and develop into a confident problem-solver.
Responding Calmly When Things Go Wrong 🌦️
Mistakes are part of the learning process. When your mentee hits a snag, like breaking the build or getting stuck on a bug, your reaction sets the tone. Instead of focusing on the error, help them pause and approach the issue methodically.
Try saying: “It’s okay. Everyone breaks the build at some point. Let’s look at what happened and see what we can learn.” This shifts the focus from blame to growth.
Encourage your mentee to slow down and think intentionally: “Before we try anything else, let’s review the error message and see what clues it gives us.” This helps them develop a calm, step-by-step approach, even under pressure.
Here’s how this might sound in practice:
- Natalie: Hey Milo, I tried to refactor the login function, but now users can’t log in at all. I’m not sure what I did wrong and I’m feeling a bit stuck.
- Milo: No worries, Natalie. Everyone runs into issues like this when making changes. Let’s take a look at the code together and see what’s happening.
- Natalie: Thanks, Milo. I was worried I messed things up.
- Milo: It’s all part of the process. Can you walk me through what changes you made? Maybe we can spot where things started behaving differently.
- Natalie: I moved some of the authentication logic into a new helper function, but maybe I missed something.
- Milo: That’s a good starting point. Let’s check if the new function is being called correctly and if all the necessary data is being passed in. We’ll figure it out together.
Milo reassures Natalie that mistakes are normal, encourages her to walk through her changes, and collaborates with her to troubleshoot the issue step by step, focusing on learning rather than blame.
By practicing calmness, curiosity, and collaborative problem-solving, you’ll help your mentee build resilience and thrive — even when things get tough. Up next, you’ll get to practice these skills in practice tasks, encouraging questions, responding calmly to mistakes, and modeling effective problem-solving.
