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Question: Can everything about people be changed, and should people try to change everything they can?

The growth mindset is the belief that abilities can be cultivated. But it doesn’t tell you how much change is possible or how long change will take. And it doesn’t mean that everything, like preferences or values, can be changed.

I was once in a taxi, and the driver had an opera on the radio. Thinking to start a conversation, I said, “Do you like opera?” “No,” he replied, “I hate it. I’ve always hated it.” “I don’t mean to pry,” I said, “but why are you listening to it?” He then told me how his father had been an opera buff, listening to his vintage records at every opportunity. My cabdriver, now well into middle age, had tried for many years to cultivate a rapturous response to opera. He played the disks, he read the scores—all to no avail. “Give yourself a break,” I advised him. “There are plenty of cultured and intelligent people who can’t stand opera. Why don’t you just consider yourself one of them?”

The growth mindset also doesn’t mean everything that can be changed should be changed. We all need to accept some of our imperfections, especially the ones that don’t really harm our lives or the lives of others.

The fixed mindset stands in the way of development and change. The growth mindset is a starting point for change, but people need to decide for themselves where their efforts toward change would be most valuable.

Question: Are people with the fixed mindset simply lacking in confidence?

No. People with the fixed mindset have just as much confidence as people with the growth mindset—before anything happens, that is. But as you can imagine, their confidence is more fragile since setbacks and even effort can undermine it.

Joseph Martocchio conducted a study of employees who were taking a short computer training course. Half of the employees were put in a fixed mindset. He told them it was all a matter of how much ability they possessed. The other half were put in a growth mindset. He told them that computer skills could be developed through practice. Everyone, steeped in these mindsets, then proceeded with the course.

Although the two groups started off with exactly equal confidence in their computer skills, by the end of the course they looked quite different. Those in the growth mindset gained considerable confidence in their computer skills as they learned, despite the many mistakes they inevitably made. But, because of those mistakes, those with the fixed mindset actually lost confidence in their computer skills as they learned!

The same thing happened with Berkeley students. Richard Robins and Jennifer Pals tracked students at the University of California at Berkeley over their years of college. They found that when students had the growth mindset, they gained confidence in themselves as they repeatedly met and mastered the challenges of the university. However, when students had the fixed mindset, their confidence eroded in the face of those same challenges.

That’s why people with the fixed mindset have to nurse their confidence and protect it. That’s what John McEnroe’s excuses were for: to protect his confidence.

Michelle Wie is a teenage golfer who decided to go up against the big boys. She entered the Sony Open, a PGA tournament that features the best male players in the world. Coming from a fixed-mindset perspective, everyone rushed to warn her that she could do serious damage to her confidence if she did poorly—that “taking too many early lumps against superior competition could hurt her long-range development.” “It’s always negative when you don’t win,” warned Vijay Singh, a prominent golfer on the tour.

But Wie disagreed. She wasn’t going there to groom her confidence. “Once you win junior tournaments, it’s easy to win multiple times. What I’m doing now is to prepare for the future.” It’s the learning experience she was after—what it was like to play with the world’s best players