Growth Mindset: How To Think About Your Self, Intelligence and Skills
Your abilities are not set in stone.
To truly understand what I mean by the growth mindset vs fixed mindset, I'd have to differentiate between talent and skill.
Talent is an innate ability granted to us by God, genetics and the forces we can't see. It's being able to perform certain things at a level that's better than most people without putting in too much work.
Skill is being able to use your knowledge and abilities to perform difficult tasks in a very effective manner. Skill is something you get by putting in your time, effort and energy. It is not easy to acquire. It does not “come to you.”
Now you may ask,
What is the Growth Mindset?
If you're a person with a growth mindset, you believe that your talents and intelligence can be developed when you put in the time, energy and effort.
You believe that through a series of hard work and hard thinking, trial and error, consistent and deliberate practice, you can become better at whatever it is you are learning at the time.
Now in contrast,
Fixed Mindset People Are Built Different
Here's why:
A person with a fixed mindset believes that all they're able to do is as a result of their innate talent.
They don't believe in hard work or practice. It's either they can do it or they can't.
Now what does this mean?
Well, a lot of things.
First of all, people with a growth mindset achieve a lot more in their life time than people with a fixed mindset.
Growth mindset people are more open to things, they're open to learning new things which isn't the same for fixed mindset people who aren't open to learning what they don't already know.
Another one is, people with a growth mindset aren't ashamed of failing. They know that failure is not the end, and that with more practice, they'll finally get the hang of it.
Now of course you can expect that fixed mindset people are ashamed of failing. But it's a little more than that…
Fixed mindset people are so concerned with protecting their image, that they would do anything to ensure that they are never seen failing.
You see them making arguments that have no point, you see them defending their mistakes instead of taking correction.
They're the people who take I'm always right way too seriously.
Now the next thing you may ask is
Why Is This A Thing?
Why doesn't everyone believe that they can achieve whatever they set their mind to?
It all goes back to how we were brought up as children.
That's right, very unsurprisingly, development plays a large role in how we perceive the world as adults.
It all boils down to what was rewarded when we did something.
When fixed mindset people win they're told, you're so smart and talented.
And when they fail they're told, you're a failure. You can never make it… you can never make it!
If only your results/output were rewarded, you're more likely to grow up believing that,
I got this result because I'm innately smart and talented.
And when something happens and you don't achieve peak results, you begin to think,
I'm a failure. I'm smart, I can't be seen as a failure. This results are false. Something must be wrong with the system. I have to cheat so that no one knows how bad I am at this.
You make no efforts to get better. Your teachers make effort to tell you how to get better.
You're left believing either, I can do it, or I can't.
People with fixed mindset believe all their abilities are limited, and even though it's not their fault, it's kinda fucked up.
In contrast however,
People with a growth mindset are rewarded for their effort.
When they win they hear, you put in the work to get here, I'm proud of you.
And when they fail they hear, it's okay to fail sometimes, now look back, what did you do to that resulted in this mess, and what can you do to ensure it never happens again.
You can see how this plays out in such a persons life.
They believe in themselves more. They're confident. They're willing to learn and try again till they get it.
These are the people you call successful.
Some Myths About Growth Mindset
Let me clear up some ideas that may have formed up in your head after reading to this point:
You Either Have it or You Don't
Wrong!
Everyone has a mixture of a growth and fixed mindset.
It suffices to say that yes, some people have one more than the other…
But it doesn't discount the fact that there are some things that no matter how open you are, you'll always have a fixed mindset about them.
Growth Mindset is About Being Positive
It's not.
If you fail at something you're not going to be positive that you failed.
You'll be outraged, disappointed that things didn't go your way, and you should be.
Growth mindset is accepting feedback. It's looking back on your mistakes and seeing how to avoid them going forward.
It's learning from your experience, and coming up with new ways you can improve as you go forward.
Reward Builds a Growth Mindset
It depends on what's being rewarded.
If you only reward the output or results, you'll never learn any lessons from your failure.
What you should do is reward yourself for putting in the work.
Reward yourself for showing up.
Reward yourself for practicing everyday to get better.
These are not easy feats.
They're continuous effort you must recognise, and you must understand that without them, you can't get the results you seek.
If you don't learn to focus on your process, and reward it, you won't know what to do when you fail.
You won't know what to go back and fix, what to improve upon and so on…
Do You Have A Growth Mindset?
Assess yourself.
What do you think of your abilities?
Do you believe your skills are something you can always develop?
Or do you believe that they're set in stone?
If you do, the point of this article is to tell you that's a recipe for failure.
Giving up on something before you actually try is failure in itself.
So change your methods.
Put in effort to learn things you're interested in.
Can't learn by yourself? Find a good teacher. There's a lot of them on YouTube.
High quality results take time, so learn to be patient with yourself.
Watch your process; trust it.
All you want to achieve is in the palm of your hand.
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I'll talk to you next week.
Till then,
Stay easy,
Dave.
P.S: today's letter is based on my understanding of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. A brilliant book by Carol Dweck.
If you would like to read the full book and learn even more ways on how to develop your mindset.
You can reach out to me by clicking the button below, and I'll send you a digital copy for free.
All you have to do is save my number and tell me you want the book on growth mindset and I'll send it to you.
Dave, I have to say.. You dey burst my head on a regular