Samuel Tolbert
How Mindset Strategies Are Transforming the Way Students Face Stress, Failure, and Academic Pressure
In today’s climate of academic stress, identity fragmentation, and emotional burnout, students—particularly those in urban environments and at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)—are not just seeking academic success. They are seeking wholeness. They are seeking mental clarity, emotional resilience, and a renewed sense of purpose. That is the heartbeat of Elevated Thoughts Academy (ETA)—to help students unlock their potential through mindset elevation, belief transformation, and values alignment. A powerful study by Aimee E. Huard (2024), published in Innovative Higher Education, provides credible evidence that supports the work we’re doing at ETA and offers a clear blueprint for how students and institutions can start rewiring how they think, react, and persevere.
The Study That Confirms What We Already Know
Huard’s study involved 210 undergraduate students who were randomly assigned to four brief, research-informed intervention groups. The first group received a growth mindset intervention, reinforcing the idea that intelligence can be developed through effort. The second group was introduced to a stress-is-enhancing mindset, which reframed stress as something useful and growth-producing, not something to avoid. A third group received a synergistic intervention, which combined both approaches. A control group received a general informational passage about the brain. Each session lasted just 5 to 10 minutes—but the results were anything but small.
Students in both the growth mindset and synergistic groups showed significant increases in their belief that they could grow and learn from challenges. Students in the stress mindset and synergistic groups gained confidence in their ability to use stress as fuel. Most notably, students in the synergistic group—those who received both types of mindset messages—showed the most powerful results: increased motivation, stronger belief in their academic capacity, and greater willingness to persist after experiencing setbacks such as poor grades or unsupportive instructors.
This study affirms something deeply embedded in ETA’s frameworks: mindset is not fixed—it is shaped. And when shaped with intentional tools, it becomes the launching pad for elevation.
The Thought Seeking Model (TSM) in Action
ETA’s Thought Seeking Model (TSM) is a practical and philosophical framework designed to close the gap between current beliefs and new elevated thinking. TSM flows through five intentional components:
Beliefs
Reinforcement
Actions
Emotions/Feelings
Thoughts
What makes TSM unique is that it reverses traditional models—we don’t start with thoughts, we start with beliefs. Because beliefs dictate what we think is possible. In Huard’s study, we saw students’ beliefs shift—not because they thought differently at first, but because they were given new reinforcement: mindset-altering interventions that challenged their internal narratives. Once those beliefs were touched, their thoughts changed, their stress response changed, and their action orientation improved.
Here’s how TSM plays out in this study:
Beliefs: Students began believing stress and failure weren’t final.
Reinforcement: The interventions served as positive reinforcers that elevated how students interpreted academic pressure.
Actions: Students chose persistence over withdrawal, resilience over retreat.
Emotions: The fear, shame, and anxiety that often accompany academic struggle were replaced with clarity and emotional agency.
Thoughts: Instead of “I’m not smart enough” or “I can’t do this,” students began thinking, “I can grow from this,” and “Stress can help me succeed.”
This is Thought Seeking in motion—activating the internal pursuit of more empowering beliefs and opening the door to transformed mindsets.
How the MV-SOAR Model Elevates This Further
Huard’s findings also directly align with the MV-SOAR Model, another signature ETA framework that addresses six transformative pillars:
Mindset
Values (Self-Worth, Self-Image, Self-Value)
Strengths
Obstacles
Accountability
Responsibility
In the synergistic intervention group—the one with the highest mindset shift—students unknowingly journeyed through an MV-SOAR process:
Mindset: They were taught to adopt growth and stress-positive beliefs.
Values: They began to view themselves differently—not as broken students, but as resilient learners. Their self-image shifted from being performance-driven to process-focused.
Strengths: Recognizing that stress is not a weakness but a usable strength changed the way they saw their internal tools.
Obstacles: Instead of withdrawing from a challenge, they leaned in—choosing courage over escape.
Accountability: The shift from blaming professors or systems to taking control of their own stress responses is accountability at its core.
Responsibility: They didn’t just hear a good message—they made a new commitment to show up differently, even when conditions didn’t improve externally.
The MV-SOAR Model guides students not just to learn, but to lead themselves through challenge, which is exactly what Huard’s research demonstrates is possible.
Implications for Colleges, Coaches, and Student Leaders
For students, this is more than a study—it’s an invitation. You don’t need to wait for your environment to change before your mindset does. With tools like the TSM and MV-SOAR, you can begin to elevate your thoughts, unpack your values, lean into your strengths, and rise beyond your current pressure. Every moment of stress is an opportunity to gain strength.
For colleges and faculty leaders, Huard’s research proves what many of us have intuitively known: traditional academic support structures are not enough. We must speak to the internal worlds of our students. When students’ mindsets are elevated, their motivation increases, their resilience deepens, and their sense of belonging improves—which impacts retention, graduation, and life beyond the degree.
Final Word: From Potential to Purpose
ETA exists to take students from potential to purpose—not just through hype, but through science, strategy, and spiritually grounded systems that restore the dignity of thought. Huard’s (2024) research gives us the empirical confirmation: a mindset shift is not a mystery. It is a process that can be learned, activated, and scaled.
So whether you’re a student unsure about your future, a professor wondering how to truly reach your class, or a college leader looking for a solution that sticks—this is it. The crisis of mindset can be transformed into a culture of purpose.
Citation:
Huard, A. E. (2024). The effect of mindset interventions on stress and academic motivation in college students. Innovative Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-024-09706-8