Mindset _ The New Psychology of Success - Carol S. Dweck [101]
So I cried. Each day things came up that I didn’t know how to do. Each time, I felt lost and overwhelmed. Why didn’t I just say to the teacher, “Mrs. Kahn, I haven’t learned this yet. Could you show me how?”
Another time when I was little, my parents gave me money to go to the movies with an adult and a group of kids. As I rounded the corner to the meeting place, I looked down the block and saw them all leaving. But instead of running after them and yelling, “Wait for me!” I stood frozen, clutching the coins in my hand and watching them recede into the distance.
Why didn’t I try to stop them or catch up with them? Why did I accept defeat before I had tried some simple tactics? I know that in my dreams I had often performed magical or superhuman feats in the face of danger. I even have a picture of myself in my self-made Superman cape. Why, in real life, couldn’t I do an ordinary thing like ask for help or call out for people to wait?
In my work, I see lots of young children like this—bright, seemingly resourceful children who are paralyzed by setbacks. In some of our studies, they just have to take the simplest action to make things better. But they don’t. These are the young children with the fixed mindset. When things go wrong, they feel powerless and incapable.
Even now, when something goes wrong or when something promising seems to be slipping away, I still have a passing feeling of powerlessness. Does that mean I haven’t changed?
No, it means that change isn’t like surgery. Even when you change, the old beliefs aren’t just removed like a worn-out hip or knee and replaced with better ones. Instead, the new beliefs take their place alongside the old ones, and as they become stronger, they give you a different way to think, feel, and act.
Beliefs Are the Key to Happiness (and to Misery)
In the 1960s, psychiatrist Aaron Beck was working with his clients when he suddenly realized it was their beliefs that were causing their problems. Just before they felt a wave of anxiety or depression, something quickly flashed through their minds. It could be: “Dr. Beck thinks I’m incompetent.” Or “This therapy will never work. I’ll never feel better.” These kinds of beliefs caused their negative feelings not only in the therapy session, but in their lives, too.
They weren’t beliefs people were usually conscious of. Yet Beck found he could teach people to pay attention and hear them. And then he discovered he could teach them how to work with and change these beliefs. This is how cognitive therapy was born, one of the most effective therapies ever developed.
Whether they’re aware of it or not, all people keep a running account of what’s happening to them, what it means, and what they should do. In other words, our minds are constantly monitoring and interpreting. That’s just how we stay on track. But sometimes the interpretation process goes awry. Some people put more extreme interpretations on things that happen—and then react with exaggerated feelings of anxiety, depression, or anger. Or superiority.
Mindsets Go Further
Mindsets frame the running account that’s taking place in people’s heads. They guide the whole interpretation process. The fixed mindset creates an internal monologue that is focused on judging: “This means I’m a loser.” “This means I’m a better person than they are.” “This means I’m a bad husband.” “This means my partner is selfish.”
In several studies, we probed the way people with a fixed mindset dealt with information they were receiving. We found that they put a very strong evaluation on each and every piece of information. Something good led to a very strong positive label and something bad led to a very strong negative label.
People with a growth mindset are also constantly monitoring what’s going on, but their internal monologue is not about judging themselves and others