Mindset _ The New Psychology of Success - Carol S. Dweck [68]
Because the fixed mindset gives them no recipe for healing their wound, all they could do was hope to wound the person who inflicted it. Lydia, the woman in the story above, told us that she had lasting, intense feelings of bitterness: “I would get back at him, hurt him any way I could if I got the chance. He deserves it.”
In fact, for people with the fixed mindset, their number one goal came through loud and clear. Revenge. As one man put it, “She took my worth with her when she left. Not a day goes by I don’t think about how to make her pay.” During the study, I asked one of my fixed-mindset friends about her divorce. I’ll never forget what she said. “If I had to choose between me being happy and him being miserable, I would definitely want him to be miserable.”
It had to be a person with the fixed mindset who coined the phrase “Revenge is sweet”—the idea that with revenge comes your redemption—because people with the growth mindset have little taste for it. The stories they told were every bit as wrenching, but their reactions couldn’t have been more different.
For them, it was about understanding, forgiving, and moving on. Although they were often deeply hurt by what happened, they wanted to learn from it: “That relationship and how it ended really taught me the importance of communicating. I used to think love conquers all, but now I know it needs a lot of help.” This same man went on to say, “I also learned something about who’s right for me. I guess every relationship teaches you more about who’s right for you.”
There is a French expression: “Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner.” To understand all is to forgive all. Of course, this can be carried too far, but it’s a good place to start. For people with the growth mindset, the number one goal was forgiveness. As one woman said: “I’m no saint, but I knew for my own peace of mind that I had to forgive and forget. He hurt me but I had a whole life waiting for me and I’ll be damned if I was going to live it in the past. One day I just said, ‘Good luck to him and good luck to me.’”
Because of their growth mindset, they did not feel permanently branded. Because of it, they tried to learn something useful about themselves and relationships, something they could use toward having a better experience in the future. And they knew how to move on and embrace that future.
My cousin Cathy embodies the growth mindset. Several years ago, after twenty-three years of marriage, her husband left her. Then, to add insult to injury, she was in an accident and hurt her leg. There she sat, home alone one Saturday night, when she said to herself, “I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and feel sorry for myself!” (Perhaps this phrase should be the mantra of the growth mindset.) Out she went to a dance (leg and all) where she met her future husband.
The Contos family had pulled out all the stops. Nicole Contos, in her exquisite wedding dress, arrived at the church in a Rolls-Royce. The archbishop was inside waiting to perform the ceremony, and hundreds of friends and relatives from all over the world were in attendance. Everything was perfect until the best man went over to Nicole and told her the news. The groom would not be coming. Can you imagine the shock, the pain?
The family, thinking of the hundreds of guests, decided to go through with the reception and dinner. Then, rallying around Nicole, they asked her what she wanted to do. In an act of great courage, she changed into a little black dress, went to the party, and danced solo to “I Will Survive.” It was not the dance she had anticipated, but it was one that made her an icon of gutsiness in the national press the next day. Nicole was like the football player who ran the wrong way. Here was an event that could have defined and diminished her. Instead it was one that enlarged her.
It’s interesting. Nicole spoke repeatedly about the pain