Growing Your Mindset

Waxing Gibbous from Skyline Trail - Dec 25, 2023

“No matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.”
Carol Dweck, Author of Mindset, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University

My daughter was in the third grade when her stellar math teacher recommended Carol Dweck’s book Mindset to me. It was the first time I was introduced to the concept of growth mindset and fixed mindset. A growth mindset takes on life’s challenges with the approach of applying effort in order to improve or develop new skills. With a growth mindset, a failure is an opportunity to learn and do better next time, an inevitable step along the way to mastering new skills. A fixed mindset tends to stick to an all-or-nothing approach - the attitude that they were born good or bad at something. (“I never was any good at math.”) Fixed mindsets address challenges with blame on something outside of themselves, and failure is to be avoided rather than accepted as a part of the learning process. 

Dweck’s book addresses how mindset plays out in many areas of life: athletics, business, parenting, and education. Two athletic examples she uses that nicely illustrate her concept are John McEnroe (fixed mindset) and Michael Jordan (growth mindset). 

McEnroe, though a talented tennis player, is well-remembered for his temper tantrums on-court. He blamed everything around him for any mistakes or failures, rather than take accountability to learn and do better. 

Michael Jordan speaks for himself: “I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Michael Jordan made a choice to learn from his mistakes. He was willing to work and work again to become better - to become a champion. 

Much of the research Dweck discusses in her talk (also linked below under Learn More) focuses on children and education. She describes the concept of “not yet,” which focuses on the ability to continually learn and develop skills. “Not yet” leaves the door of possibility open; more than that it gives power to the learner to continue to move forward and improve rather than being defined at one point in time, by one success or failure. One compelling result she shares of using growth mindset in schools: a Stanford professor went back to her Native American reservation in Washington and within 12-18 months of utilizing growth mindset, the kindergartners and first-graders were at the top of the district in reading and reading-readiness. This district included affluent Seattle kids. As Dweck puts it, “the reservation kids outdid the Microsoft kids.”

And, just as we can develop our brain (new neural pathways) at any age, we can choose a growth mindset at any age. In other words, you are never too old to learn a new skill. Although new neural pathways may be easier to develop with a young brain, they can certainly, with practice, be developed in older brains. Here are some ideas for encouraging your growth mindset (from this helpful article, also linked below under Learn More):

• Challenge yourself by learning something new - a language, a dance, the words to a song.
• Accept that learning is a process - and focus on the process rather than getting to some end-point.
• Seek out feedback, someone else’s perspective, in order to learn more.
• Create self-awareness - like developing mindfulness through meditation or journaling.

Learn More
Check out Carol Dweck’s talk about Developing a Growth Mindset
Informative and actionable article about Developing a Growth Mindset As An Older Adult


​Originally published Sept 15 2022