reading-notes

Growth Mindset

Notes

Primary Source: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck

Code Fellows Article: How You Can Benefit from a Growth Mindset

The Mindsets

There are two types of mindsets:

• Fixed
• Growth

Fixed Mindset

Fixed mindsets start from the premise that human traits and characteristics are immutable.

Examples:

• You are smart, or you are not
• You are athletic, or you are not
• You are sociable, or you are not
• You are good at coding, or you are not

This mindset is limiting as it does not:

• Account for the human capacity to learn and improve skill sets
• Emphasize the effort one puts into accomplishing a task/goal (i.e. outcomes are predetermined by innate ability)
  • “You’re so smart, look at that A+!”
  • “You studied so hard, look at that A+!”
    • The first statement says that irrespective of the effort you put in, the outcome will be an A+ because you are smart
    • The second statement says that because you put in a lot of effort, the outcome is an A+

Therefore, with a fixed mindset, you are more likely to perceive success as a result of being innately great at that thing, and perceive failures as a result of being innately terrible at those things. This leaves you pursuing the things that come easy to you, however, eventually you will reach a point where more advanced skills are necessary and you will need to dedicate significant time to improvement to reach the next level. When you reach this point you will begin to see your inability to master the task with ease as a failing, that you are not good enough to reach the next level, and will likely give up and pursue something else.

Those with a fixed mindset lack grit.

Growth Mindset

Growth mindsets start from the premise that human traits and characteristics can be developed overtime through effort and learning.

Examples:

• I can study harder and get that A+
• I can practice every afternoon and make varsity
• I can make a concerted effort to talk to one new person a day
• I can learn to code if I put my mind to it and focus

This mindset is empowering because it:

• Embraces challenges as an opportunity to learn
• Persists in the face of obstacles
• Sees the level of effort as something tied to the worthiness of the goal, not as a measure of ability
• Learns from criticism
• Celebrates and is inspired by the success of others

Those with a growth mindset achieve more & higher goals because they DO NOT GIVE UP

Summary

	Growth	Fixed
Challenges	Embraces	Avoids
Obstacles	Persists	Loses Focus
Effort	Means the Goal is Worthy	Means Not Good Enough
Crticism	Learns From	Ignores
Success of Others	Celebrates & Inspires	Views as a Threat
Outcomes	Achieve More & Higher Goals	Fail to Reach Full Potential

Reminders

1. When things are hard, that is when you are learning

   “There is no effort with out error and shortcoming” -Theodore Roosevelt, “The Man in the Area”

2. Don’t compare yourself to the best in a field, compare yourself to who you were yesterday
   • What do you know today that you did not know yesterday?
   • What can you do better today than you could do yesterday?
3. Embrace failures as learning opportunities, find opportunities to improve in successes
   • What was the cause of the failure?
   • How can I address that shortcoming so I succeed next time?
   • This succeed, why?
   • Is there a way to succeed faster or more efficiently next time?
   • Who should I talk to about this?