Mindset by Carol Dweck transformed me as a person.
It made me failure resilient. It gave me the mental strength to endure difficult situations. It changed how I think about success, failure, mistakes, obstacles, rejection, and criticism.
And the book can do the same for you.
Dr. Carol Dewck, an American psychologist, is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton professor of psychology at Standford university. She is one of the world’s best researchers on topics like motivation, personality, and social development.
Her book, Mindset, has impacted millions of people throughout the world. And, maybe now it’s your time.
Let me share what I have learned from Mindset. It will give you a basic idea about the various concepts explained in a detailed way in the book. Ready?
Lessons from Mindset
Our Mindset plays a vital role in deciding the quality of our life. How we think about our abilities and how we deal with different life situations greatly reflects the mindset we have.
First things first, our mindset can be classified into two groups- fixed and growth.
Let’s start with the fixed mindset.
What is a Fixed Mindset?
1. People with a fixed mindset believe that their abilities and talents are fixed and can’t be changed over time.
If you have the ability, you are capable. If you don’t have the ability, you can’t do anything about it.
In simple words, you can’t develop talents and abilities.
2. Fixed mindset people don’t believe in efforts. Efforts are useless and only for dumb people.
If you have to put effort into a work, you are not fit for the job.
3. Because they believe in talents, they have an intense desire to prove them to others. They can go to any limits to show off their abilities.
And yes, they love appreciation and success as it strengthens the fact that they are talented.
4. But when they face failures, their life becomes miserable. Failure is a nightmare because it can prove they are dumb and don’t have talent. They don’t like challenges and give up easily when obstacles come their way.
5. Fixed mindset people don’t like to commit mistakes. They dream of being perfect and looking good to others.
6. They either ignore or can’t tolerate criticism. They don’t like feedback and don’t believe in learning from constructive criticism. Learning is boring for them.
7. Success of other people threatens them, and they often feel jealous of others’ achievements.
What is a Growth Mindset?
1. People with a growth mindset believe you can develop any ability by putting in the right effort. You can learn any skill if you work towards it sincerely.
In other words, abilities can be developed over time, and you can change as a person.
2. They believe in effort, and if you put the right effort and stay consistent, you can achieve any results.
3. They don’t feel the need to prove themselves to others. If they don’t have the ability, they just work and develop it. Proving to people how smart they are is wasting time.
4. Growth mindset people don’t take failure too seriously. They don’t care what people think about them. They take their lessons from failures and move forward to try again.
As you can guess, they don’t give up easily.
When they face difficult situations, they get inspired to do better. They accept challenges because they want to learn. They believe in learning and are always willing to learn.
5. People with a growth mindset don’t get hopeless after committing a mistake but try again with a different approach.
6. They welcome criticism and learn from it. They ask for feedback and try to improve their skills.
7. They get inspired by the success of others. When people around them succeed, they feel positive and motivated.
Which Mindset do You Have?
The simplest answer to the above question is- you have both.
In other words, you may have some qualities of a growth mindset and some of a fixed mindset.
For example, you may believe that you can develop any skill by putting effort (growth mindset). But when you face failure, you feel you are not talented and are not made for it (fixed mindset).
So, you need to identify where you have a fixed mindset and where you have a growth mindset.
A growth mindset is the best and can make your life fulfilling. So, try not to get influenced by your fixed mindset and listen more to your growth mindset.
In simple words, be careful when your fixed mindset activates and try to pull it towards the growth mindset.
Final Words
Understanding the difference between these two types of mindsets alone can significantly help your transformation towards a growth mindset.
The book consists of numerous examples of people who got different results because of their fixed or growth nature.
You will find a detailed explanation of how you can apply the concepts of a growth mindset in different fields like personal growth, business, sports, relationship, parenting, or teaching.
And believe me when I say the book can be a game changer. You must read it. And let me know in the comments if this post has helped you.