I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures…. I divide the world into the learners and nonlearners. – Benjamin Barber
Carol Dwecks’ book, Mindset: changing the way you think to fulfil your potential, is a book I often hear quoted and with good reason. It discusses and breaks down the concepts that she refers to as the fixed and growth mindsets, how they impact us and how we can learn from them.
A fixed mindset, as she puts it is best characterised by “believing that your qualities are carved in stone” it also “creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over.” She discusses how to someone who believes in the fixed mindset that the world is more about proving your intelligence or talent rather than learning and actively trying to improve. We all know people who have said “oh I’m just not good at that” a phrase that is a hallmark of a fixed mindset.
The growth mindset on the other hand as she puts it “is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.” The growth mindset says that “a persons true potential is unknown” and that you need to stretch yourself to learn new things.
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Is success about learning or proving that your smart?
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In general these are crucial topics for everyone to understand as they can have some tremendous and far reaching impacts on your life. The book does a wonderful job of breaking them down and discussing them from many view points and if I were recommending this book to someone who has not read it before I would tell them to read the first few chapters where the concepts are built, then to skip to any of the further chapters which cover a role that maybe more relevant to you. For example not everyone is a sports coach but far more people are likely to be parents, so skip the coach chapter and instead read the chapter on parenting.
Below I’ve included my favourites notes and highlights.
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• it’s not always the people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest.
• Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over.
• growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.
• a person’s true potential is unknown (and unknowable);
• The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset.
• people’s ideas about risk and effort grow out of their more basic mindset.
• the world of fixed traits—success is about proving you’re smart or talented. Validating yourself. In the other—the world of changing qualities—it’s about stretching yourself to learn something new. Developing yourself.
• IS SUCCESS ABOUT LEARNING—OR PROVING YOU’RE SMART?
• Benjamin Barber, an eminent sociologist, once said, “I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures…. I divide the world into the learners and nonlearners.”
• People in a growth mindset don’t just seek challenge, they thrive on it.
• If things get too challenging—when they’re not feeling smart or talented—they lose interest.
• “Becoming is better than being.” The fixed mindset does not allow people the luxury of becoming. They have to already be.
• The problem is when special begins to mean better than others. A more valuable human being. A superior person. An entitled person.
• failure has been transformed from an action (I failed) to an identity (I am a failure).
• John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach, says you aren’t a failure until you start to blame. What he means is that you can still be in the process of learning from your mistakes until you deny them.
• the students with the fixed mindset had higher levels of depression.
• Next time you’re tempted to surround yourself with worshipers, go to church. In the rest of your life, seek constructive criticism.
• In fact, in the fixed mindset, adolescence is one big test.
• And in the fixed mindset, a loser is forever.
• It’s no wonder that many adolescents mobilize their resources, not for learning, but to protect their egos. And one of the main ways they do this (aside from providing vivid portraits of their teachers) is by not trying.
• The fixed mindset limits achievement. It fills people’s minds with interfering thoughts, it makes effort disagreeable, and it leads to inferior learning strategies.
• Whether we’re talking about Darwin or college students, important achievements require a clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies.
• Edwards agrees that most people view drawing as a magical ability that only a select few possess, and that only a select few will ever possess.
• this is because people don’t understand the components—the learnable components—of drawing.
• They are the ability to perceive edges, spaces, relationships, lights and shadows, and the whole. Drawing requires us to learn each component skill and then combine them into one process.
• Some people simply pick up these skills in the natural course of their lives, whereas others have to work to learn them and put them together.
• Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean that others can’t do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training.
• many people with the fixed mindset think that someone’s early performance tells you all you need to know about their talent and their future.
• Think about your hero. Do you think of this person as someone with extraordinary abilities who achieved with little effort? Now go find out the truth. Find out the tremendous effort that went into their accomplishment—and admire them more.
• Think of times other people outdid you and you just assumed they were smarter or more talented. Now consider the idea that they just used better strategies, taught themselves more, practiced harder, and worked their way through obstacles. You can do that, too, if you want to.
• “It wasn’t merely that he didn’t like to fail; it was as if he didn’t know how to fail.”
• Natural talent should not need effort. Effort is for the others, the less endowed. Natural talent does not ask for help. It is an admission of weakness.
• You can see the small or graceless or even “disabled” ones who make it, and the god-like specimens who don’t. Shouldn’t this tell people something?
• Boxing experts relied on physical measurements, called “tales of the tape,” to identify naturals. They included measurements of the fighter’s fist, reach, chest expansion, and weight. Muhammad Ali failed these measurements.
• Michael Jordan was cut from the high school varsity team
• For Jordan, success stems from the mind. “The mental toughness and the heart are a lot stronger than some of the physical advantages you might have. I’ve always said that and I’ve always believed that.” But other people don’t. They look at Michael Jordan and they see the physical perfection that led inevitably to his greatness.
• It goes by different names, but it’s the same thing. It’s what makes you practice, and it’s what allows you to dig down and pull it out when you most need it.
• Those with the growth mindset found success in doing their best, in learning and improving. And this is exactly what we find in the champions.
• For those with the fixed mindset, success is about establishing their superiority, pure and simple. Being that somebody who is worthier than the nobodies.
• People with the growth mindset in sports (as in pre-med chemistry) took charge of the processes that bring success—and that maintain it.
• in the fixed mindset, you don’t take control of your abilities and your motivation. You look for your talent to carry you through, and when it doesn’t, well then, what else could you have done? You are not a work in progress, you’re a finished product. And finished products have to protect themselves, lament, and blame. Everything but take charge.
• Are there sports you always assumed you’re bad at? Well, maybe you are, but then maybe you aren’t. It’s not something you can know until you’ve put in a lot of effort. Some of the world’s best athletes didn’t start out being that hot. If you have a passion for a sport, put in the effort and see.
• Sometimes being exceptionally endowed is a curse. These athletes may stay in a fixed mindset and not cope well with adversity. Is there a sport that came
• Athletes with a growth mindset find success in learning and improving, not just winning. The more you can do this, the more rewarding sports will be for you
• Every word and action from parent to child sends a message. Tomorrow, listen to what you say to your kids and tune in to the messages you’re sending. Are they messages that say: You have permanent traits and I’m judging them? Or are they messages that say You’re a developing person and I’m interested in your development?
• How do you use praise? Remember that praising children’s intelligence or talent, tempting as it is, sends a fixed-mindset message. It makes their confidence and motivation more fragile. Instead, try to focus on the processes they used—their strategies, effort, or choices. Practice working the process praise into your interactions with your children.
• Watch and listen to yourself carefully when your child messes up. Remember that constructive criticism is feedback that helps the child understand how to fix something. It’s not feedback that labels or simply excuses the child.
• Parents often set goals their children can work toward. Remember that having innate talent is not a goal. Expanding skills and knowledge is. Pay careful attention to the goals you set for your children.
