Mindset _ The New Psychology of Success - Carol S. Dweck [116]
When the bickering resumed, it was fiercer than ever because it reflected all of their disappointed hopes.
Mindset change is not about picking up a few pointers here and there. It’s about seeing things in a new way. When people—couples, coaches and athletes, managers and workers, parents and children, teachers and students—change to a growth mindset, they change from a judge-and-be-judged framework to a learn-and-help-learn framework. Their commitment is to growth, and growth takes plenty of time, effort, and mutual support.
Learn and Help Learn
Every day presents you with ways to grow and to help the people you care about grow. How can you remember to look for these chances? Each morning, as you contemplate the day in front of you, try to ask yourself these questions. Copy them over and paste them on your mirror:
What are the opportunities for learning and growth today? For myself? For the people around me?
As you think of opportunities, form a plan, and ask:
When, where, and how will I embark on my plan?
When, where, and how make the plan concrete. How asks you to think of all the ways to bring your plan to life and make it work.
As you encounter the inevitable obstacles and setbacks, form a new plan and ask yourself the question again:
When, where, and how will I act on my new plan?
Regardless of how bad you may feel, do it! (Put that on your mirror, too.)
And when you succeed, don’t forget to ask yourself:
What do I have to do to maintain and continue the growth?
Remember, as Alex Rodriguez, the great baseball player, says: “You either go one way or the other.” You might as well be the one deciding the direction.
THE ROAD AHEAD
Change can be tough, but I’ve never heard anyone say it wasn’t worth it. Maybe they’re just rationalizing, the way people who’ve gone through a painful initiation say it was worth it. But people who’ve changed can tell you how their lives have been enhanced. They can tell you about things they have now that they wouldn’t have had, and ways they feel now that they wouldn’t have felt.
Did changing to a growth mindset solve all my problems? No. But I know that I have a different life because of it—a richer one. And that I’m a more alive, courageous, and open person because of it.
It’s for you to decide whether change is right for you now. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But either way, keep the growth mindset in your thoughts. Then, when you bump up against obstacles, you can turn to it. It will always be there for you, showing you a path into the future.
NOTES
CHAPTER 1. THE MINDSETS
When I was a young researcher: This research was conducted with Dick Reppucci and with Carol Diener.
Through the ages, these alleged physical differences: See Steven J. Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man (New York: Norton, 1981) for a history of how people have tried to explain human differences in terms of innate physical characteristics.
It may surprise you to know: Alfred Binet (Suzanne Heisler, trans.), Modern Ideas About Children (Menlo Park, CA: Suzanne Heisler, 1975) (original work, 1911). See also: Robert S. Siegler, “The Other Alfred Binet,” Developmental Psychology 28 (1992), 179–190; René Zazzo, “Alfred Binet,” Prospects: The Quarterly Review of Comparative Education 23 (1993), 101–112.
“A few modern philosophers”: Binet, Modern Ideas, 105–107.
In fact, as Gilbert Gottlieb: Gilbert Gottlieb, “Normally Occurring Environmental and Behavioral Influences on Gene Activity: From Central Dogma to Probabilistic Epigenesis,” Psychological Review 105 (1995), 792–802.
Robert Sternberg: Robert Sternberg, “Intelligence, Competence, and Expertise.” In Andrew Elliot and Carol S. Dweck (eds.), The Handbook of Competence and Motivation (New York: Guilford Press, 2005).
A View from the Two Mindsets: This research was conducted with Wenjie