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The Growth Mindset Workbook: CBT Skills to Help You Build Resilience, Increase Confidence, and Thrive through Life's Challenges

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The Growth Mindset Workbook: CBT Skills to Help You Build Resilience, Increase Confidence, and Thrive through Life's Challenges [Elliott-Moskwa PhD, Elaine, Dweck PhD, Carol S.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Growth Mindset Workbook: CBT Skills to Help You Build Resilience, Increase Confidence, and Thrive through Life's Challenges

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The Power of a Growth Mindset | Surbhi Sachdev | TEDxManipalUniversityJaipur

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This is a book about self-sabatoge. Why we do it, when we do it, and how to stop doing it-for good. Coexisting but conflicting needs create self-sabotaging behaviors. This is why we resist efforts to change, often until they feel completely futile. But by extracting crucial insight from our most damaging habits, building emotional intelligence by better understanding our brains and bodies, releasing past experiences at a cellular level, and learning to act as our highest potential future selves, we can step out of our own way and into our potential. For centuries, the mountain has been used as a metaphor for the big challenges we face, especially ones that seem impossible to overcome. To scale our mountains, we actually have to do the deep internal work of excavating trauma, building resilience, and adjusting how we show up for the climb. In the end, it is not the mountain we master, but ourselves.

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The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery

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This is a book about self-sabatoge. Why we do it, when we do it, and how to stop doing it-for good. Coexisting but conflicting needs create self-sabotaging behaviors. This is why we resist efforts to change, often until they feel completely futile. But by extracting crucial insight from our most ...

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Welcome!

At Planet Positive Change we're passionate about sharing practical tools for positive change with you. As a result, our courses are designed to give you information, inspiration and great, actionable tips. In this free growth mindset course you'll find everything you need to begin your growth mindset journey. Once you've worked through this free growth mindset course, why not head over to our partner site for more great resources:
Growth Mindset at Work Free Introduction to Growth Mindset Course
Contents:

Your four steps to growth mindset success:

Step 1: What's Your Mindset? Take the Assessment

Remember, this analysis is just the start, it describes where you're at with mindset now, Consequently, it isn't a summary of all the great things you can achieve when you develop and maintain a growth mindset. You're at the start of your growth mindset journey.
Take the Growth Mindset Self Assessment
Step 2: Growth Mindset 101 - the facts

Introducing Mindset

Mindset is a simple yet groundbreaking idea. Participants on our growth mindset courses often describe the impact of growth mindset as being life changing.

Psychologist and world renowned mindset expert, Carol Dweck, has spent decades researching achievement and success. In her bestselling book "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" she reveals:

1. How teaching a simple idea about the brain can drastically increase performance and productivity

2. Why intelligence and talent don't accurately predict success

3. How intelligence and talent may even become obstacles to success

4. How we can unlock the limitless potential in ourselves and others by developing a growth mindset

The childhood experience of Carol Dweck sparked a lifetime fascination with intelligence and achievement. Consequently, Dweck recalls how she and fellow classmates were seated in order of their IQ in school and remembers of her teacher,

"She let it be known that IQ for her was the ultimate measure of your intelligence and your character..."

Carol Dweck's research reveals that we can all possess both a fixed and growth mindset. For example, it's possible to have a growth mindset in some areas of life and take a fixed approach in others. As you can imagine, mindset has a huge impact on motivation to learn and take on new challenges. Consequently, when you commit to developing a growth mindset you are actively changing your brain. As a result, when you take on new habits and learn new skills your brain fires new neurons and develops strong new neural pathways, this is neuroplasticity in action.

Typical beliefs when you're in fixed mindset mode

My intelligence, abilities and talents are fixed, there's not much I can do to change them

People are successful because they're born that way, they're just naturally super smart and talented

Success = superiority

There's little point in effort, it won't make a difference to my ability

I'm defined by my failures, they show me my limitations

When I learn something new I worry about looking and feeling stupid, I don't want others to see me fail

I sometimes struggle to bounce back from setbacks. Because I feel measured by failure, my resilience can be affected.

Typical beliefs when you're in growth mindset mode:

My current levels of intelligence, talent and ability are just the starting point, I can improve and develop them with effort

I can improve all areas of my life by developing my strengths and abilities, not just the areas where I can see I already have a reasonable ability.

When I fail at something it's disappointing but it's not all defining, I understand that failure is part of the process of improving my performance.

I can reframe my view of failure and see it as part of the bigger learning process, I'm less afraid of getting things wrong and the effort involved in mastering something becomes more enjoyable, even if it's just the challenge I'm enjoying.

Effort and perseverance are important but I also need to examine setbacks and mistakes to understand how I can improve my performance, this is what takes me to the next level.

I celebrate my successes and recognise all of the effort and perseverance that helps me to achieve my goals.

When I begin a new challenge, I recall other times when I've started something from scratch, like a project, a job or new skill and then gradually excelled as I gained more knowledge and confidence. Remembering past challenges in this way helps me avoid feeling like a helpless newbie and motivates and encourages me to take on new challenges wholeheartedly.

Don't fall into the false growth mindset trap

It's great to discover a potentially life changing theory like growth mindset and think to yourself, "Yep! Pretty sure I've got that covered. I'm open minded, flexible about things and have a positive outlook, sounds like I have a growth mindset approach to life." But have you really got to grips with mindset or is your understanding of fixed and growth mindset a bit more limited than you realise?

It's not uncommon for people to distort the theory behind mindset and as a consequence fail to reap the benefits that a growth mindset can provide. As a result, such misconceptions have become known as a false growth mindset. There are three common misconceptions that contribute to a false growth mindset.
Find out more here
Spotting your fixed-mindset triggers

Even when we work hard to avoid these false growth mindset traps we can still find it less than easy to develop a growth mindset because we all possess fixed mindset triggers. For instance, a fixed mindset trigger might be evident when we face criticism, are unfavourably compared with others or face a challenge. If we fall into defensiveness or insecurity then growth is stifled. Inevitably, some environments can be full of these fixed mindset triggers.

Tips for managing your fixed-mindset triggers

1. Focus on being aware of when your fixed-mindset 'persona' shows up

2. Identify what it takes to make you feel threatened and defensive.

3. Develop a growth mindset approach by spotting your triggers, identifying the fixed-mindset persona for what it is and learning to respond with a growth mindset approach, persuading your fixed persona to work towards the new growth mindset effectively.

3 Key take-aways

1. Effort, perseverance and learning from errors are the route to mastery.

2. You're unlikely to meet anyone who has a 100% growth or fixed mindset. Remember, it's a spectrum, we're all a mixture of growth and fixed mindsets depending on the challenge we face and what we believe about our abilities in relation to that challenge. It's about developing the ability to recognise your own fixed mindset triggers.

3. When you adopt a growth mindset approach you're not deterred or defined by failure. Instead, learning from failure helps improve performance and achieve mastery.

Step 3: Developing Your Mindset
"Picture your brain forming new connections as you meet the challenge and learn. Keep on going." Carol Dweck
4 habits to cultivate a growth mindset

The belief we hold about our own abilities and how this affects motivation is key to understanding how we can change. Here are four habits that will increase self-belief and fuel your motivation to develop a growth mindset:

1. Learn to hear your fixed mindset inner dialogue voice

2. Recognise that you have a choice. Your response to challenges, setbacks & criticism is your within your control.

3. Respond to self-doubt with a growth mindset. "Most successful people had failures on their way," "if I don't try I automatically fail."

4. Choose to act with a growth mindset approach:

1. take on the challenge wholeheartedly

2. learn from your setbacks and try again

3. hear the criticism and choose a growth mindset response, your mindset is up to you.

Some of our favourite growth mindset examples

Steve Jobs gives his Stanford commencement speech

J. K. Rowling on not giving up

Michael Jordan on failure and success

We'd love to hear your growth mindset stories in the comments section.

Step 5: Find out more

Congratulations on completing this course. Why not head over to our partner site Growth Mindset at Work for more great growth mindset resources, and a free Introduction to Growth Mindset Course.

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Free Growth Mindset Course - Planet Positive Change

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At Planet Positive Change we're passionate about sharing practical tools for positive change with you. As a result, our courses are designed to give you information, inspiration and great, actionable tips. In this free growth mindset course you'll find everything you need to begin your growth mindset journey.

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LearnStorm Growth Mindset: The Truth About Your Brain

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Scholars are deeply gratified when their ideas catch on. And they are even more gratified when their ideas make a difference - improving motivation, innovation, or productivity, for example. But popularity has a price: People sometimes distort ideas and therefore fail to reap their benefits. This has started to happen with my research on "growth" versus "fixed" mindsets among individuals and within organizations.

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What Having a "Growth Mindset" Actually Means

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Take your first step towards a more driven, focused and inspired life with Motivate. Having trouble staying focused? Tune out the distractions and remind yourself what it is you're striving for with videos and playlists designed to encorage you to keep your eyes on the prize.

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The Balanced Educator is a weekly podcast hosted by the co-founders of Educalme, Kailey Lefko and Josianne Barnabé. Our intention is to equip and empower educators and parents to feel more calm, balanced, and joyful in all aspects of their lives. We discuss mindset shifts and habits that we are experimenting with in our own lives that are making our days more intentional, mindful and fun. We talk about different ways to practice mindfulness in our own lives and then how we can share what we are learning with our kiddos in the classroom or at home. We believe that when we nurture ourselves first, we can share our unique gifts and talents with our kiddos in a bigger and deeper way.

The Balanced Educator is a weekly podcast hosted by the co-founders of Educalme, Kailey Lefko and Josianne Barnabé. Our intention is to equip and empower educators and parents to feel more calm, balanced, and joyful in all aspects of their lives. We discuss mindset shifts and habits that we are experimenting with in our own lives that are making our days more intentional, mindful and fun. We talk about different ways to practice mindfulness in our own lives and then how we can share what we are learning with our kiddos in the classroom or at home. We believe that when we nurture ourselves first, we can share our unique gifts and talents with our kiddos in a bigger and deeper way.

Bringing theory into practice

If you're into mindfulness, you know that folks can get vague when talking about navigating the field. Not these ladies. Kailey and Josianne are so clear with their language and are always sure to leave you with action steps that make you feel like you have a clear direction. This podcast is truly helpful!!!

Every teacher needs to listen to this!

There is SO much wisdom and insight packed into this podcast. Listening makes you feel like you have the supportive coworkers you've only ever dreamed of having. I'd recommend this to new and veteran teachers alike. You are guaranteed to learn something and improve your craft. Kailey and Josianne's voices are soothing to listen to, and their laughter and inspiration are contagious.

2nd career novice teacher

I enjoy experiencing the calming, lighthearted gifts of this podcast each am during My Time. I feel like I'm listening to wise words from two friends I've known for years. I am grateful for the honest experiences these ladies share.

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the balanced educator podcast: education | mindfulness | growth mindset

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‎The Balanced Educator Podcast: Education | Mindfulness | Growth Mindset on Apple Podcasts

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The Balanced Educator is a weekly podcast hosted by the co-founders of Educalme, Kailey Lefko and Josianne Barnabé. Our intention is to equip and empower educators and parents to feel more calm, balanced, and joyful in all aspects of their lives. We discuss mindset shifts and habits that we are expe...

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Many of us are aware of the importance of adopting a growth mindset and perhaps even believe we have done so already.

But do we really know what we mean when we talk about moving from fixed thinking to the growth zone?

Findings from research into the benefits of a growth mindset have been well received. Knowing that "the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life" means we all have the potential for change (Dweck, 2017).

This article digs a little deeper, exploring the supporting research and steps needed to adopt a growth mindset.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Meaning and Valued Living Exercises for free. These creative, science-based exercises will help you learn more about your values, motivations, and goals and give you the tools to inspire a sense of meaning in the lives of your clients, students, or employees.

Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset

"Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset" (Dweck, 2016). On the other hand, those with a fixed mindset believe such talents are an innate gift and not easily changed.

While Carol Dweck's pioneering work on the growth mindset has had a considerable impact since her 2014 TED Talk and more recent book Mindset, it is often misunderstood.

Therefore, it is essential to be clear on exactly what a growth mindset is and avoid some of the common misconceptions that arise, including (Dweck, 2016):

I've always had it.
Afalse growth mindset often results from confusing the concept with flexibility or open-mindedness. We are all a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets; we can't claim to have always had one or the other.

It's just about praising effort.
While effort is essential, it must be productive. Deep engagement in the processes that lead to positive outcomes is vital, such as trying out new strategies, asking for help, and learning from failure.

Talking about a growth mindset is enough.
Adopting a growth mindset means more than saying it's a great outlook to have. Organizations, in particular, need to encourage staff to take appropriate risks, support collaboration over competition, and facilitate learning and development.

To enter or remain in the growth zone, we must recognize fixed mindset triggers we find in the environment that hold us back. It could be fear of failure or uncertainty over competence. Once we recognize what makes us feel defensive or threatened, we can challenge and even talk back to it (Dweck, 2016).

As Angela Duckworth (2018, p. 180) notes, "some of us believe, deep down, that people really can change." That's a growth mindset.

Growth-minded individuals believe that we can get smarter with the right opportunities, degree of effort, and self-belief. Those who are more fixed in their outlook agree that you can learn skills (e.g., fixing a car, riding a bike, etc.) but believe you can't train your talent.

A setback for someone with a fixed mindset can be catastrophic, believing they don't have what it takes, while someone with a growth mindset sees it as a chance to learn and get better (Duckworth, 2018).

Research Behind the Theory and Model

While Dweck's ideas on the importance of adopting a growth mindset have been widely accepted and applauded, sometimes without fully grasping the importance of the principles beneath, it is vital to remember that it is more than just an idea.

Dweck and others have spent years researching what a growth mindset is and is not, and their findings back up their claims (Dweck, 2017).

In a 2013 study, Gunderson et al. found that praising effort in children leads to a growth mindset, while encouraging inherent abilities leads to adopting fixed-ability frameworks. Ongoing research has identified that adopting a growth mindset dramatically changes how you approach life and encourages success in education, business, and even relationships (Dweck, 2017).

Yeager and Dweck (2020) explained the current state of research into growth mindsets in education and attempted to answer some of the challenges and questions surrounding the theory. Some examples from their research are included below.

1. Does a growth mindset predict academic outcomes?

Mostly. "There is a replicable and generalizable association between mindsets and achievement" (Yeager & Dweck, 2020, p. 5).

A fixed mindset typically predicts lower academic results in tests and exams compared with a growth mindset. However, findings suggest that it may not have an effect when hours of study are very high, such as in Mainland China, with a reported 57 hours of study per week.

2. Do growth mindset interventions work?

Not always. While growth interventions (for example, encouraging effort, seeking help, and changing strategies) sometimes improve academic success, that is not always the case. Outcomes vary depending on the individual's psychological profile and the type of interventions used.

It appears that finding a growth mindset intervention appropriate to the individual and their needs is crucial.

3. Can teachers instill a growth mindset in their students?

Unclear. Mindset interventions either aimed at or administered by teachers at scale have not generally proved successful. Despite immense care and effort, positive results have not been immediate. And yet, benefits may be seen in the longer term.

It seems positive results are more likely in response to direct-to-student programs that teach students a growth mindset directly.

While inconclusive, there appears to be a theme rising from the research. Adopting a growth mindset is not a silver bullet, always guaranteeing better performance and improved outcomes. Yet, when an intervention is well timed and appropriate to the individual, a shift in mindset becomes apparent, leading to success in multiple areas of life (Dweck, 2017).

How to Coach Clients Toward a Growth Mindset

When coaching someone to adopt a growth mindset, you must help them learn what it looks like in themselves and others. Only then can they begin to make the changes needed to spend more time in the growth zone.

The following approaches will help.

What is a growth mindset?

Introduce and explore the following statement defining a growth mindset with your client (Yeager & Dweck, 2020, p. 1):

"A growth mindset is the belief that personal characteristics, such as intellectual abilities, can be developed, and a fixed mindset is the belief that these characteristics are fixed and unchangeable."

Ask the client to consider and discuss the following:

In the last seven days, when have you displayed a fixed mindset?

In the last seven days, when have you displayed a growth mindset?

Which mindset worked out and why?

When would you like to adopt a growth mindset more often?

Recognizing a growth mindset

Ask the client to think about someone (a friend, family member, or someone famous) who spends most of their time in a fixed mindset (modified from Dweck, 2017):

Now, think of someone who exhibits a growth mindset and ask yourself:

How do they view and approach obstacles?

How do they stretch themselves?

Ask the client to consider why you may enjoy and get more out of life with a growth mindset. Discuss and list some pros and cons.

Growth Mindset Interventions: 2 Examples

Dweck (2017, p. 223) writes, "the growth mindset is based on the belief in change."

There are several interventions we can use to help someone use their abilities to learn, develop a growth mindset, and challenge a fixed mindset, including the following.

Visualizing a dilemma

We are confronted with daily dilemmas. Some are small (What should we have for lunch?) while others significantly impact our lives (Should we work for a startup?).

While we must always balance potential risks and gains, opening yourself up to growth does not mean you become careless. Instead, you will become more yourself, not less (Dweck, 2017).

Try visualizing some real and artificial dilemmas. How would you react to the situation from a fixed versus a growth mindset? Consider the following two examples:

You didn't get the offer you had hoped for from graduate school.

A fixed mindset might tell you that you were fooling yourself. You were never going to get in, and that's that.

Using a growth mindset, you go further. You think about your goal. What are you trying to achieve? Could you get back in contact with the school to see what options you have or apply for a different one? Perhaps you could commit to additional studies then try applying again.

The project didn't go well; mistakes were made.

A fixed mindset might ask, Well what did they expect? After all, I didn't have the skills needed. You accept the failure and, most likely, repeat the mistakes in the future.

Using your newfound growth mindset, you think about how you could learn from what went wrong. You get the team together to consider what you can salvage, how you can fix what's wrong, and how you can prevent it from happening again.

A growth mindset is ultimately more favorable because it puts you back in control.

Review your rejections

We have all experienced rejection, likely many times. To ensure future instances are less catastrophic, it can help to consider past examples and ask yourself some growth-related questions.

Think of several situations where you felt rejected. Perhaps you were turned down for a date, didn't get on the basketball team, or didn't get offered the job.

What did you learn?

Did the experience teach you more about yourself and what you do and don't want out of life?

What positives came out of the rejection (perhaps not immediately, but later)?

Can you forgive the person who rejected you, wish them well, and let go of any bitterness?

3 Activities, Games, and Exercises for Adults

Finding ways to adopt a growth mindset can be fun, especially when performed in pairs or groups. Here are some great exercises to try.

Seek out challenge

In his book Think Again, Adam Grant (2021) encourages readers to escape 'echo chambers' where everyone agrees with you. Instead, challenge your mindset by seeking out people who think differently.

If you hold a particular view about something, encourage a reasoned discussion with non-likeminded people where you challenge one another. Don't just try to beat them; learn from them. What didn't you know before? Should you alter your view, perhaps becoming more moderate, or replace it?

Group settings can become powerful opportunities to challenge your entrenched beliefs and views.

Embrace the joy of being wrong

We often become so fixed in our thinking or concerned about looking foolish that we hold on to our beliefs despite new information to the contrary.

When you find out that you are mistaken or need to update your thinking, welcome it and be prepared to laugh at yourself. Focus on improving rather than proving yourself (Grant, 2021).

Sometimes sharing our mistakes and learning can provide a sense of freedom, for yourself and others.

Picture your ideal relationship

While we often imagine ideal relationships (romantic, business, or otherwise) as harmonious and without disagreement, it is most likely unrealistic and not in our best interests (Dweck, 2016).

Work with your partner(s) and consider how a growth relationship might tackle different situations.

For example, consider a romantic relationship, where someone gets an inviting text from an ex. Take different mindset positions and reflect on how you might respond.

Best Worksheets, Workbooks, and Handouts

Mindset Works is an exciting website exploring Dweck's and others' pioneering research on the growth mindset.

It offers training and free resources, including study guides, handouts, and lesson plans (for parents and teachers) to nurture positive learning beliefs, habits, and cultures.

For more resources for teaching students a growth mindset directly, try out some of the resources available at PERTS. Applying research-based practices, PERTS aims to create learning environments for students and empower educators to thrive. Learning programs are available for students of all ages and include a learning library and Mindset Kit.

Assessing Mindset: 3 Questionnaires and Tests

There are plenty of mindset tests available for scoring growth mindsets and highlighting opportunities to improve. Check out the following sample of three:

The research-validated Mindset Assessment at Mindset Works identifies elements of your mindset that are fixed and helps you to develop strategies to move toward growth.

PERTS' Mindset Kit offers a mindset assessment involving journal writing for children in second grade.

IDR Labs had a growth mindset test that highlights an individual's degree of fixed versus growth mindset based on Dweck's research.

While some of the above tests may not have been scientifically validated, they offer insight into areas of our thinking that we should consider revisiting.

8 Questions to Ask Your Clients

Dweck (2017, p. 12) suggests that to understand your mindset, ask yourself which of the following statements you most agree with.

Regarding abilities:

1. Your intelligence is something that you can't change very much.

2. You can learn new things, but you can't really change how intelligent you are.

3. No matter how intelligent you are, you can still change a bit.

4. You can always substantially change how intelligent you are.

If you strongly agree with statements 1 and 2, you are more fixed in your thinking. Agreeing with statements 3 and 4 suggests you adopt more of a growth mindset.

Regarding personal qualities:

1. You have certain personal qualities, and there is little you can do to change that.

2. No matter who you are, you can always change substantially.

3. You may change how you do things, but you can't change the essential elements of who you are.

4. You can always change the basic things about who you are.

Statements 1 and 3 suggest a fixed mindset, while 2 (in particular) and 4 indicate you have a growth mindset.

Become a Mindset Coach: 3 Training Options

The following three training options are valuable for learning how to be a mindset coach.

The above is a sample of some of the commercial courses available. Search around and check out reviews to ensure the course suits your needs, budget, and time.

Resources From PositivePsychology.com

Looking for more tools to help shift your clients' mindsets? Take a look at the following free worksheets.

Adopt A Growth Mindset
This exercise helps clients recognize instances of fixed mindset in their thinking and actions and replace them with thoughts and behaviors more supportive of a growth mindset.

Fact Checking Thoughts Worksheet
This exercise helps clients differentiate between facts and opinions as the first step toward challenging harmful opinions about ourselves and others.

Simple Thought Diary Worksheet
This simplethought diary template can help clients systematically link experiences and situations to thoughts and emotions, serving as a useful tool to review one's commonly adopted mindset.

17 Meaning & Valued Living Exercises
If you're looking for more science-based ways to help others discover meaning, check out this collection of17 validated meaning tools for practitioners. Use them to help others choose directions for their lives in alignment with what is truly important to them.

A Take-Home Message

Over the last decade, the idea of adopting a growth mindset has become commonplace. Educators, businesses, and individuals may all claim to have adopted one without fully understanding what that means.

Having a growth mindset means recognizing our ability to change who we are, what we know, and how we think. Our personal qualities and abilities are not static; they remain open to change from outside and within.

For many, this may offer a significant shift in their outlook of who they are and can become. Recognizing our capacity for growth and development places accountability on ourselves to take charge and develop in the direction of our choosing.

Whether working on yourself or with a client, review the theory and try out the questions and exercises to understand which mindset you rely on. Then identify what changes you wish to make to enter the growth zone. The choice is ultimately yours, but a growth mindset may open up new opportunities for you that may have previously seemed impossible.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don't forget to download our three Meaning and Valued Living Exercises for free.

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18 Best Growth Mindset Activities, Worksheets, and Questions

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Many of us are aware of the importance of adopting a growth mindset and perhaps even believe we have done so already. But do we really know what we mean when we talk about moving from fixed thinking to the growth zone? Findings from research into the benefits of a growth mindset have been well received.

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Kids learn how to adopt a growth mindset through the familiar structure of the ABCs. any, kids learn new vocabulary that expands their view of themselves learners. empowers kids to persevere and encourages them to view learning as a journey with limitless possibilities.

Mistakes aren't just mistakes. They're growth spurts. Developing a growth mindset-a belief that learning is a process that requires dedication and hard work, not just talent-helps kids learn from their mistakes, build resilience, and strive to be a little better every day.

Not your typical alphabet book, Y Is for Yet uses the ABCs as an accessible framework to introduce growth mindset and all its possibilities. From A to Z, or A bility to Z Y Is for Yet

Readers can open to any page and find useful information. Younger children learn new vocabulary, while older kids can increase their knowledge of the brain's neuroplasticity and the many ways growth mindset can be put into action. A section at the back of the book provides a kid-friendly glossary of terms and activities adults can use to help kids build resilience and foster a growth mindset.

With an uplifting and positive tone,

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Y Is for Yet: A Growth Mindset Alphabet [Anderson, Shannon, Souva, Jake] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Y Is for Yet: A Growth Mindset Alphabet

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How do you rate your life so far?

Do you enjoy learning new stuff? Or would you rather stick to your well-known routines?

Are your relationships based on mutual love, trust, and respect? Or do you feel like you're constantly competing with someone?

Are you having fun and taking risks? Or do you fear failure?

If you relate more to the "or" questions and problems, perhaps it's time to change your mindset. Bear with us to find out how to switch from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset and achieve your goals in every area of your life.

What Is a Growth Mindset?

Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts. -W. Churchill

These wise words by Churchill unfold what the growth mindset is all about: seeing opportunities instead of obstacles.

That means seeing failure as a chance to develop your abilities further, instead of rolling into your cocoon and hiding from the world.

As scientific evidence shows, your intelligence, talents, and abilities don't necessarily stop growing once you reach adulthood. According to psychologist Eric Ericsson, humans go through several stages of development throughout their life. Every stage is defined by the challenge you need to overcome in order to continue to the next stage.

However, as we grow up, it sometimes happens that we change our perspective: we stop believing that we are capable of growth and development, and we build a debilitating and static self-image instead.

Luckily, science and modern psychology can shed light on a completely different approach to life. Let's for a second focus our lens on Stanford University, the institution where Dr. Carol Dweck has been studying human motivation for some 30 years.

Dr. Dweck noticed that there was a significant difference between different students' approach to success and failure, which inspired her to start doing research and build a theory around it.

She coined the term growth mindset to describe those people who believe they can achieve great things only through hard work and strong relationships with others.

Growth Mindset: Definition by Dr. Carol Dweck

As we mentioned earlier, a growth mindset is an approach to life in which an individual believes that their talents, intelligence, and abilities can be developed further. People with a growth mindset seek opportunities to learn, gain new skills, and enhance their existing skills.

When presented with a challenge, an individual with a growth mindset doesn't see it as a chance to fail, but rather, as an opportunity to grow. They believe that hard work, and not luck or chance, can take them far in life. However, believing is not enough - it's the gestalt of your beliefs and actions that make a growth mindset work.

As doctor Dweck nicely put it:

The growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments, everyone can change and grow through application and experience.

But, in order to understand the concept of growth mindset better, we should introduce its opposite concept-fixed mindset. This concept is also a product of Dr. Dweck's research, and here are a few words about it.

Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset

Contrary to the growth mindset, a fixed mindset means that you believe that your abilities, talents, intelligence, or personality traits are given and unchangeable. You're born with what you're born with-and that's it.

How we view what we consider to be our personality is one of the most basic beliefs a human being carries around through life. Dr. Dweck found that people with a fixed mindset believe that success is just the affirmation of our inherent traits-our intelligence, abilities, or talents. There is no point in trying to do or learn new things, because if you were to be good at it-you already would have known it.

Dr. Dweck claims that these two mindsets manifest from an early age, and shape a great deal of our behavior, relationships, and approach to failures and successes. In her words:

Believing that your qualities are carved in stone creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character, well then you'd better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. It simply wouldn't do to look or feel deficient in these most basic characteristics.

As you can see, unlike the growth mindset, a fixed mindset is very debilitating and can cause different hurdles throughout our lifespans. The fear of failure forces us to stick with what we're good at, and never take a step forward.

What's even worse is that a fixed mindset doesn't only affect a person who has this attitude, but their whole social sphere. These people tend to see others as competition, rather than find them as inspiration. The fixed mindset causes people to have a hard time being happy for other people's successes. Therefore, it's hard to be true friends with them.

To make the distinction between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset clearer, we have provided this table with growth mindset examples, and fixed mindset examples, derived from her theory:

Intelligence is static

Intelligence can be developed

"I desire to look smart"

"I desire to learn new stuff"

Avoids challenges

Embraces challenges

Gives up easily

Persists even when it's hard

Ignores constructive negative feedback

Sees criticism as a chance to learn

Sees the success of others as a threat

Sees the success of others as inspiration

"Failure is the limit of my abilities"

"Failure is an opportunity to grow"

Deterministic worldview

Sense of free will

"Efforts are fruitless, I can achieve what I can achieve"

"Efforts are a path to mastery"

Reaches the plateau early in life and achieves less than they're capable of

Has higher levels of achievement

Now that we're clear about what growth mindset actually is, let's move to the next important question: how to achieve it.

How to Achieve a Growth Mindset

The first step out from the fixed mindset is believing that you can step out of it and that growth mindset is possible to achieve.

So, ask your gut. What does it say? Are you ready to take some steps towards a more open attitude in life? Are you ready to even fail sometimes, and take responsibility for it, by accepting failure as a challenge and opportunity, instead of bowing down before it has even happened?

In order to help you elevate your state of being and achieve a growth mindset, we've prepared this thorough list of advice. We hope it will serve you well!

A Challenge Is an Opportunity

This first tip is probably the most difficult one to embrace. Fear of failure is deeply rooted and related to the fear of the unknown. The best way to start seeing challenges as opportunities is to experiment with them, analyze your mistakes, and learn to be patient: every time you start over, you're one step closer to becoming a master in whatever it is that you're doing!

Embrace Your Imperfections

If you're trying to hide from your weaknesses, you'll never overcome them. Embrace your imperfections, they're what makes you-you.

There Are so Many Tactics...

The typical fixed mindset always uses the same, proven tactics in problem-solving or learning. It's all related to the fear of failure. What if this new method doesn't work? Just because other people around you study or work using one method doesn't mean that method will necessarily work for you. It's not a competition between you and the rest of the world: it's a competition between the person you're today and the person you were yesterday. The larger the variety of tactics you're able to apply, the wider spectrum of problems you'll be able to solve!

Pay More Attention to the Words You're Using

Do our words reflect our thoughts, or is it vice versa? This is the famous Sapir-Vorf hypothesis. We can't determine which answer is right, but we can assume there is a correlation. As the famous German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said: The limits of my language mean limits of my world.

If you say that you have failed every time you don't achieve success, it's much more likely that you'll build a debilitating self-image. On the other hand, if you try replacing the word failure with the word learning, and say that you've learned something every time you don't succeed, you'll much more likely build a positive picture of yourself. That, of course, should be followed by analyzing why you didn't succeed and trying one more time, using different methods.

Do Your Research: Learn More About Brain Plasticity

If the organic structure of your brain is capable of changing, why wouldn't you be?

Brain plasticity means that our brains are able to change and adapt, as a result of experience.

For example, the brain can change its physical structure, as a result of learning processes or move functions from one area to another in case of damage. The word plasticity doesn't refer to plastic, it refers to the brain's malleability.

Now that you know what your brain is capable of, don't you think it's time to let your mind become "plastic" as well?

The Process Is More Important Than the End Result

This is another crucial shift you need to make if you want to exit the headspace of the fixed mindset and enter the more productive and happier growth mindset.

The fixed mindset is, typically, always focused on the end result:

Will it be good enough?

Will someone else do it better?

As we said already-do not compete with others. Every human being is different, it's fruitless to compare yourself to others. Also, the end product loses its value if you didn't enjoy the process.

If studying or working is torture to you, receiving that university degree, or finishing a project won't put a smile on your face. It's far more important that you enjoy the process: solving puzzles, reinventing solutions, memorizing interesting facts or stories, having "a-ha!" moments.

Stop Seeking Others' Approval: Enjoy the Learning Process

Valuing approval over learning is similar to valuing the end product over the process-it just kills the enjoyment!

A moment in space and time in which everyone finds you the most beautiful, the smartest, the most talented, or capable will never happen. So, drop the perfectionism, and enjoy your learning process! Every time you fall, you'll get up bigger and better.

Cultivating self-acceptance and approval helps you become more confident, and consequently, makes you trust yourself more.

Be Happy for Other People's Growth and Celebrate with Them

Seeing other people as friends and inspiration can take you much further than viewing them as competition. That way, you'll create honest and strong relationships with others, and enhance your own chances for growth.

Cultivate a Sense of Purpose

When you're doing something, do you feel like there's more to it? Like all the things that happen on your path are there for a higher reason?

Dr. Dweck's research has shown that students with a growth mindset have a higher sense of purpose than those with a fixed mindset. It's quite simple-a sense that there's something greater than yourself and more important than petty competitions with others is the strongest driver you can have.

Keeping a gratitude journal can be very helpful when cultivating a sense of purpose. The Five Minute Journal takes only five minutes of your time, and it's designed to gear you towards greater positivity. Remembering every day what you're grateful for can help you shift your mind towards a growth mindset. If you don't like to carry a notebook around, you can always download The Five Minute Journal app to your phone and set up a reminder to fill out your gratitude journal.

If you'd like to find out more about keeping a gratitude journal, feel free to read our Ultimate Gratitude Journal Guide.

Growth Is More Important than Speed

Allowing yourself to make a mistake takes time. Learning things well takes time. Getting things done properly takes time. So keep calm and take your time. You're racing only with yourself.

Actions Are What Matters-Not Traits

Doing something smart or in a smart way is far more important than being smart.
Being inherently smart is great, but this still doesn't mean you'll act that way. If you show off your intelligence by exhibiting how great you are with puzzles, riddles, numbers, or school grades, you'll just look like you're bragging. But, if you approach problems with interest and a wish to learn, that's irreplaceable.

Making mistakes is a chance to change your approach to things in life. This can take you far closer to achieving a growth mindset than calculating how to leave the best possible impression.

Talent Isn't What Makes a Genius-Hard Work Is

We'll just cite Albert Einstein's famous quote: Genius is 1% talent, 99% work. Yes, sometimes things do happen by chance. Some people are lucky to be born with a beautiful voice, while others can't hit a note even if their life depends on it. However, hard work always pays off. A neglected talent doesn't go far, while hard work is always recognized.

Criticism Can Be Good for You

The typical fixed mindset person often ignores criticism as an unbearable strike to the ego. Try to let go and see criticism as a gift. Every bit of criticism is a suggestion to improve your work. This is exactly the kind of shift necessary for building a growth mindset.

"Room for Improvement" vs "Failure" Definition

Just like you need to change your vocabulary and include more encouraging words, you also need to stop seeing everything as black and white. Life is not an all-or-nothing game. There's always plenty of room for improvement, nothing can be done perfectly. Just because you or somebody else notices that there's room to improve something, it doesn't mean you failed. On the contrary! It means that you should work harder to achieve what it is that you want to achieve, which is the very basis of a growth mindset.

Reflect, Reflect, Reflect

You know how we said you need to learn from your mistakes and value them as opportunities to grow? Perhaps we left you wondering how to do this. As one example, you can commit to keeping a reflective journal. This means taking time to write about your experiences, analyze them and yourself, and see what could be done better.

How is reflection connected to a growth mindset?

Well, it's literally impossible to learn something new or to understand where you've been wrong if you don't reflect on that experience.

The reflective journal should be your safe space to stress out all your thoughts, and what's even more important, they'll stay there, so you can return and re-analyze them.

Abandon the Idea of Building an Image

Luckily, we no longer live in the time of phrenology. Intelligence and success are a result of both nature and nurture. Some psychologists, like Berhus Skinner, believed that it's only nurture that counts. He even said:

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select-doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.

This may be a bit of an extreme point of view, but it proves a point. There's no such thing as "natural talent". If there's no hard work involved, that talent may never even be discovered.

Other People's Mistakes are a Valuable Learning Resource

Try expanding the "Learn from your mistakes" to "learn from others' mistakes" as well. Whichever path you're taking, somebody must have been there already. Our experiences may seem unique, however, they're not. Yes, there are certain things that are case-specific, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't relate to other people's similar experiences. This doesn't mean comparing yourself to them, just seeing that other people have similar weaknesses as you do.

Here are 10 inspiring and famous failure stories you might be able to relate to.

Take Risks even if Others are Watching

Stop taking yourself too seriously. Loosen up a bit. Be goofy. Don't be afraid to make mistakes in front of other people.

For instance, are you aware of how many people feel anxious to do something as simple as eating in front of other people? We don't know the exact number, but honestly: a lot. Perhaps you're one of them, of at least you know somebody who feels that way.

The reason for that anxiety is simple: the fear of looking silly or stupid in front of others. What if we spill everything, or stain ourselves?

What if?

Nothing! You can always laugh at yourself, and make a joke. It's no big deal.

Get Realistic About Your Goals

In order to achieve a growth mindset, you also need to get good at planning and organization. This means adopting time-management skills and having a fine-tuned reality checker.

Realistic goals are specific, measurable, attainable, and time-bounded. The best way to get in touch with your organizational self is to sit with a pen and paper, write down your goals, analyze them, define how you're going to achieve them, and give yourself a realistic time limit.

But that's not enough. You also need to stick to this plan and track your progress. In order to do this in the simplest and most creative way, we recommend using The Productivity Planner. The Productivity Planner is a highly structured daily planner based on the Focus Time Technique. It empowers you to focus your mental energy on the most meaningful tasks of the day and accomplish them on time.

Own Your Attitude

Once you fully instill change and manage to achieve a growth mindset-own it! Acknowledge your new role, and let it guide you throughout both your relationships and professional career.

Final Word

How do you feel after reading this article? Was it helpful?

Which advice sticks with you the most?

We believe that you now understand the difference between a fixed and a growth mindset as well as how to make this shift. Don't forget that making such a radical change in your psyche is a process, and can't be achieved overnight. So, even if you notice some leftovers from your previous strategies and behaviors, don't judge yourself. Analyze, reflect, and accept your imperfections and failures.

To sum up, we'll cite Dr. Dweck:

We like to think of our champions and idols as superheroes who were born different from us. We don't like to think of them as relatively ordinary people who made themselves extraordinary.

It all starts with you and how much you're ready to give: work, fail, start over, plan, experiment, and celebrate success.

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What Is Growth Mindset and How to Achieve It

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How do you rate your life so far? Do you enjoy learning new stuff? Or would you rather stick to your well-known routines? Are your relationships based on mutual love, trust, and respect? Or do you feel like you're constantly competing with someone? Are you having fun and taking risks?

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Enna isn't a queen of confidence. Struggling to believe in herself, the young girl is certain she doesn't have what it takes to read during bedtime. But when she finally falls asleep, she's greeted by a wonderful woman who's incredibly familiar...

As the journey across her dreamscape shows her potential versions of herself, Enna is amazed at everything she's learned how to do. But she knows all that growth won't come free - it will take time, knowledge, and dedication.

Can Enna learn to tackle challenges with a smile?

In this indispensable tool for battling gender stereotypes and other hardships, author Esther Pia Cordova reveals mentalities that can hold kids of all kinds back. And by dismantling unhealthy thought processes, she encourages a bold new approach to living life to the fullest.

I Can't Do That, YET is the inspiring first story in the Growth Mindset children's picture book series. If you or your child like motivational fun, reworking negative patterns, and gorgeous visual learning, then you'll love Esther Pia Cordova's step forward.

Buy I Can't Do That, YET to stand taller today!

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I Can't Do That, YET: Growth Mindset (Growth Mindset Book Series)

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I Can't Do That, YET: Growth Mindset (Growth Mindset Book Series) [Cordova, Esther Pia, Cordova, Esther Pia, Adiputri, Maima W] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. I Can't Do That, YET: Growth Mindset (Growth Mindset Book Series)

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What is a growth mindset, and why does it matter?

Students with a fixed mindset believe that their intelligence and talent are innate traits that don't change. For example, they might say "I just can't learn math." These students typically worry about not looking smart, get upset by mistakes, and give up sooner on tough tasks.

Students with a growth mindset believe that ability can change as a result of effort, perseverance, and practice. You might hear them say, "Math is hard, but if I keep trying, I can get better at it." Students with a growth mindset see mistakes as ways to learn, embrace challenges, and persist in the face of setbacks. High-performing students and low-performing students may have either mindset.
Studies show students with a growth mindset:

Are more motivated and engaged, even when work is challenging

Are more likely to review or revise their work

Score better on math and verbal standardized tests

Fail fewer classes and have higher GPAs

Are more likely to persist in high school and college

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What is a growth mindset, and why does it matter? Students with a fixed mindset believe that their intelligence and talent are innate traits that don't change. For example, they might say "I just can't learn math." These students typically worry about not looking smart, get upset by mistakes, and give up sooner on tough tasks.

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The power of 'yet' with Zoe and Elmo from Sesame Street

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‎The Growthcast | Presented by The Multifamily Mindset on Apple Podcasts

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When you think about people who are successful, skillful, or intelligent, how do you think they got there? Did they earn those traits? Were they just lucky or gifted?

Do you consider these traits to be the result of hard work, perseverance, and persistent learning from failure? Or do you believe that skill, intelligence, and success are entirely genetic and that some people are just naturally talented in certain areas, and others aren't?

These different viewpoints are known as fixed and growth mindsets.

Are you interested in finding out which is which and why it matters?

Let's take a look at:

What it means to have a growth mindset

What a growth mindset is and isn't

How a growth mindset differs from a fixed mindset

13 steps to developing a growth mindset and manifesting your own success

What does it mean to have a growth mindset?

So, what is a growth mindset?

The growth mindset concept was originally developed by Stanford Psychologist Carol Dweck. She introduced the idea to the public in Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

In this book, Dweck demonstrates how people (students, in particular) can be divided into two groups. There are those who have a growth mindset and those who have a fixed mindset.

The growth mindset definition is:

People with growth mindsets believe that skill and intelligence are something that people can develop. They believe that while people have inherent qualities and traits, success comes from constant personal development.

The fixed mindset definition is:

By contrast, those with fixed mindsets believe that talent and intelligence are something you either have or you don't.

That is, some people are good at certain activities, and others excel in different areas. They don't believe that practice, failure, and strategy development are key to developing talent or intelligence.

What Dweck discusses is that those who do develop a high degree of talent are more often people with a growth mindset.

Interestingly, those with growth mindsets experience greater success and skill development.

It works both ways.

5 growth mindset myths

There is sometimes a lack of clarity for many as to what the growth mindset theory really means.

So, let's start by debunking some growth mindset myths and discuss a few realities and findings that stem from Dweck's research.

First, let's take a look at five common misconceptions about a growth mindset:

1. The mindsets are either/or

When we first learn about growth and fixed mindsets, the tendency is to try and identify with one or the other.

After all, it seems like a binary concept, with just two beliefs to choose from.

The truth is, the mindsets aren't generally an either/or affair. Most of us sit on a spectrum somewhere in between a growth and a fixed mindset.

2. An organization can have a mindset

Another challenge presented by the growth mindset culture is the myth that organizations can have a mindset.

Inspired leaders often claim that "our organization has a growth mindset." This typically isn't true.

Organizations are made of many people, and each individual person has their own mindset.

An organization can seek to foster and develop growth mindsets in the individuals within it as part of its company culture. But a business cannot have a growth mindset in itself.

3. A growth mindset is the same as a positive mindset

A growth mindset is not simply about remaining positive.

Growth mindsets are about believing in the potential for development and that learning a new skill comes from practice and perseverance. It's not simply from natural talent.

4. Growth mindsets automatically lead to positive results

A growth mindset in itself does not guarantee results. Nor is a person with a fixed mindset excluded from success.

A growth mindset coupled with the motivation to improve, a commitment to personal growth, and time put into developing a skill drives positive results.

5. Everyone has unlimited potential

The truth is that not everyone is capable of absolutely everything.

Some believe that having a growth mindset means that the achievement of anything is possible.

This is inaccurate. Individuals with a growth mindset recognize that their innate ability and limitations play a part as well.

But they also understand that their capacity for achievement does not start and stop with their genetic makeup.

4 growth mindset realities

Now that we have busted some common myths, let's look at four realities about a growth mindset.

1. Most people are somewhere in between

When Professor Carol Dweck analyzed students' mindsets, she did not identify a purely binary result.

Though most students in the classroom lean strongly toward one side or the other, most were found to have mindsets somewhere in the middle.

They might believe, for example, that their ability to improve at math comes down to teaching strategies and their own attention and commitment to the learning process. But they might also believe that their reading and writing abilities are inherent.

The same observations can be made in the workplace.

2. Growth mindset is more than just effort

Dweck has noticed, as growth mindsets are embraced by the leader and educator alike, that many seem to believe that it all comes down to effort.

Dweck notes that some teachers seem to believe that they can improve a student's achievement by telling them to try harder. She calls this a 'false growth mindset.'

Effort is important. But more crucial is a student's attitude toward learning a new thing and their perspective on failure as a part of the learning process.

3. Not everyone can achieve everything

Each individual has limitations that a growth mindset intervention might help combat but cannot overcome entirely.

The 5'2" 22-year-old is unlikely to become a player in the WNBA.

4. Positive results come from a growth mindset and working toward a goal

Growth mindset students and employees are people who understand that positive improvement is possible.

They believe that to achieve their goals, they must:

View failure as a part of learning

Put in the time

Embrace the challenge

Develop new strategies to overcome each challenge

Working toward a goal without these views is unlikely to elicit positive results. Cultivating a growth mindset won't do much without putting in the necessary time and practice to develop a new skill.

Growth mindset vs. fixed mindset

We've discussed what a growth mindset is. But how is it different from a fixed mindset?

Here are the differences between the two viewpoints:

Growth Mindset

Fixed Mindset

13 tips to develop a growth mindset

Now that we've discussed the benefits of a growth mindset, let's walk through some tips on how you can develop one.

First, we will talk about actions you can take right now, and then we'll give you some action you'll need to commit to long-term.

Prepare to develop a growth mindset

Here are seven steps you can take right now to develop a growth mindset:

1. Determine where you sit now

Do you consider yourself more or less in the growth mindset pool, and you're looking to make sure you stay that way? Or would you describe yourself as having a fixed mindset?

Knowing where you stand to begin with is the first phase. You can't tell where to go if you don't know where you are.

2. Explore why you want to develop a growth mindset

What is it about the growth mindset that motivates you to change? What benefits do you see a growth mindset bringing to your life?

Understanding this will give you purpose during the difficult stages of developing this worldview.

3. Find examples of others who have developed a growth mindset

Start talking to your friends, family, and colleagues about the growth mindset. See if anyone you know has also been working on developing one. They might be able to provide some valuable insights.

4. Change your perspective on failure

Start viewing failure not as a sign of inability but as part of the process of learning.

Nobody starts out on any endeavor being the perfect example of the goal. Even the world's greatest athletes, artists, and business magnates started out as kids with little talent or expertise.

5. Understand your own limitations

Recognize that some things will be beyond what you can achieve. This helps you to set realistic goals. It will help you understand that some endeavors (such as the ones that your genetic makeup is less suited for) will require even more effort.

6. Notice how you speak and act

Notice how you talk about talent and skill. Do you find yourself saying things like, "I'm no good at this" or "She's just naturally talented"?

Swap those phrases out for "I'm not great at this yet." and "She's clearly put in a lot of effort to become so talented."

Notice how others around you speak and act, and then seek out those who have growth mindsets and foster your relationships with them.

7. Learn about brain plasticity

If you're the kind of person who loves learning about how the human brain works, then consider diving into the world of neuroplasticity.

This will give you a neat physiological perspective on how the growth mindset actually works.

Start cultivating and developing a growth mindset

Once you've mastered the above seven steps, it's time to start adding these growth mindset actions to your repertoire.

1. See your challenges as opportunities

Life will always find a way to throw something difficult at you. Try not to see these challenges as obstacles or setbacks that you dread.

Rather, try to view them more positively. Try to view them as opportunities to overcome something difficult and grow as a result. The more difficult the challenge, the greater the opportunity for learning and growth.

2. Reflect each day on what you've failed at (and learned from)

Many of us spend some time at the end of the day reflecting on our successes. While this is a valuable habit, try adding a couple of minutes to reflect on the areas where things didn't go as well. What did you learn from that experience? The point isn't to dwell or beat yourself up but to recognize and lock in the learning.

3. Stop seeking approval from others

When we seek the approval of others, we take on the wrong objective. We start taking being right as our goal, rather than learning and growing. Become aware of the difference. Pause to recognize when you are pursuing approval rather than growth and remind yourself, kindly, to stop seeking approval from others. You'll find that you become more comfortable with the daily failures that come with stretching.

4. Identify opportunities to celebrate the success of others

When others around you succeed, celebrate! More than this, get curious about what made them successful. Even better, ask them. Connect with others to understand what actions they took and how they approached the challenge to get there.

5. Focus on rewarding actions, not traits

You can help others develop a growth mindset, too, by praising their efforts and actions rather than their inherent traits.

For example, if your child brings home a stellar result on their pop quiz, appropriate praise would sound like, "Wow, you did so well, you must have put a lot of effort into studying," rather than, "Wow, you did so well, you must be very smart."

6. Start using the word "yet" more often

This is a simple one. Whenever you catch yourself thinking "I'm not very good at this," add the word "yet":

"I'm not very good at this yet."

Do you have a fixed or growth mindset?

Now that you've learned about growth mindsets and fixed mindsets, which camp do you feel you fit into?

If you identify with the growth mindset concept, great! You're well on your way to developing your own talents. Spend some time reflecting on areas where your mindset might be more fixed, though, as most of us are a blend of the two.

If you feel like you're more of a fixed mindset person, then the next question to ask yourself is: "Is this something I want to change?"

Need help to develop a growth mindset? Our BetterUp Coaches are committed to developing organizational health and mental fitness.

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Learn what a growth mindset is, how it differs from a fixed mindset, and how to develop your own in 13 steps. Plus, read about common growth mindset myths.

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A body of research has shown that telling children that they're smart and implying that their success depends on it fosters fixed mindsets. When these children later experience struggle, they tend to conclude that their ability is not high after all, and as a result they lose confidence, so our praise has the opposite effect of what we intended. On the other hand, praising hard work or strategies used, things that children control, has been shown to support a growth mindset.

This research was designed to learn more about one of the ways to support a growth mindset, not to identify all there is to fostering a growth mindset. When people newer to the growth mindset framework initially learn about this research, they sometimes conclude that we should simply praise children for working hard. But this is a nascent level of understanding. First, exhorting students to work hard would be an attempt to directly change behaviors without changing the underlying belief about the nature of abilities.

Second, students often haven't learned that working hard involves thinking hard, which involves reflecting on and changing our strategies so we become more and more effective learners over time, and we need to guide them to come to understand this. For example, a novice teacher who sees a student trying very hard but not making any progress may think "well, at least she's working hard, so I'll praise her effort," but if the student continues to do what she's doing, or even more of it, it's unlikely to lead to success. Instead, the teacher can coach the student to try different approaches to working, studying, and learning, so that she is thinking more deeply (i.e. mentally working harder) to become a better learner, and of course the teacher should do the same: reflect on how to adjust instruction. "It's not just about effort. You also need to learn skills that let you use your brain in a smarter way. . . to get better at something." ( Yeager & Dweck, 2012.)

Third, cultivating growth mindsets involves a gradual process of releasing responsibility to students for them to become more self-sufficient learners, and praise is a communications technique that tends to be more helpful earlier in that process of building agency. Later on, adults can ask students questions that prompt them to reflect, so that they're progressing down the path toward independence.

Fourth, praise and coaching are not the only, or most powerful, ways to foster growth mindsets. For example, another method is modeling lifelong learning and making it visible, which gets us to the next confusion.
Confusion #3: Growth mindset is about changing young people, not adults
Some recent criticisms paint growth mindset work as solely focused on the students and not the adults. This is a misunderstanding of what growth mindset efforts are about. In our work with educators, we encourage the adults to start with themselves. If we don't work to shift our own mindset about ourselves and our students, then we won't work to change many other important things in the system necessary to improve education. Furthermore, our efforts to foster growth mindsets in students are likely to fail because we will say and do things that reflect our fixed mindset beliefs, which students will notice. We must deeply explore mindsets within ourselves and then gradually work to develop our own growth mindsets and our habits as learners. This means authentically working to become better at what we do throughout our lives, including how we teach and how we create contexts that help students thrive, and making our learning process visible to one another and to students.

We encourage the schools we serve to train teachers early in their growth mindset efforts, involving reflections and discussions on adult beliefs and continuous improvement practices. We provide professional learning resources to help them do so. Dr. Dweck and other mindset researchers speak about the importance of fostering a growth mindset in adults and have researched the mindsets of educators, managers, leaders, and other grownups. Growth mindset research is about learning how we humans can all become more motivated and effective learners, not about how we can change students but not ourselves.
Confusion #4: All that matters is what's in the mind
Another confusion about mindset is that the only determinant of success is our mindset. But that's not the case. Context, culture, environment, and systems matter. For one thing, people's mindsets (as well as other beliefs and behaviors) are strongly shaped by the people around them. Beyond that, people's destiny is not only a function of what's within them, but also of what's around them. A lot of the early mindset research studies focused on individual's minds because they were seeking to understand how humans work. But mindset researchers recognize, research, and speak about the importance of shifting culture, context, and systems, and both researchers and practitioners actively work on that aspect of change efforts.
Confusion #5: Improvement is all about changing beliefs and not doing anything else
Related to that, another confusion we see, also reflected in recent commentaries, is that growth mindset work is solely about fostering the belief that we can improve, but not about changing the educational system or actually doing anything about that belief. Carol Dweck has talked extensively about changing learning tasks, testing practices, and grading systems. Too many tasks and teaching approaches are superficial, irrelevant, unengaging, and not learner-centered. We do need to change these tasks, the curriculum, and the pedagogy. We need to change the idea that school is about testing rather than about learning. We also need to better tackle broader issues such as childhood trauma and lack of exposure to early reading. People who dive deeper into growth mindsets learn about how important these issues are and how we might begin to address them, and a growth mindset helps them take on the challenges. As David Yeager and Gregory Walton point out:
[Mindset] interventions complement-and do not replace-traditional educational reforms. They do not teach students academic content or skills, restructure schools, or improve teacher training. Instead, they allow students to take better advantage of learning opportunities that are present in schools and tap into existing recursive processes to generate long-lasting effects . . . Indeed, [Mindset] interventions may make the effects of high-quality educational reforms such as improved instruction or curricula more apparent (Deepening our understanding over time Yeager & Walton, 2011 Growth Mindset Enables Change ). Let's Learn Together
As with anything else, the deeper we go into mindsets, the deeper our understanding becomes. Over time, more nuanced questions arise, such as about the relationship between mindset and performance, results, failure, potential, assessments, mistakes, and many other things. For example, early on a teacher who is learning about mindset may start oversimplifying mistakes as always being 'good', but this can confuse learners, as mistakes are not always something we should seek to do. With time we start distinguishing stretch mistakes, sloppy mistakes, aha-moment mistakes, and high-stakes mistakes.

Research has shown that developing a growth mindset is beneficial in a variety of contexts, from education to the workplace to interpersonal relationships to sports to health. It leads people to take on challenges they can learn from, to find more effective ways to improve, to persevere in the face of setbacks, and to make greater progress, all of which we need to further cultivate in education. Furthermore, there is evidence that its benefits are most pronounced for people who face negative stereotypes, such as underserved minorities and females in STEM, and as a result growth mindset efforts can narrow the achievement gap.

Growth mindset is a seemingly simple concept, but there is a lot of nuance to the framework and its applications. I hope that this article helps clarify common misconceptions. We invite people to continue diving deeper into this body of work and engage in explorations together. We welcome further feedback because it takes a village, or more precisely, all of us, to foster better learning.

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Growth Mindset: Clearing up Some Common Confusions | KQED

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A body of research has shown that telling children that they're smart and implying that their success depends on it fosters fixed mindsets. When these children later experience struggle, they tend to conclude that their ability is not high after all, and as a result they lose confidence, so our praise has the opposite effect of what we intended.

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get out of your own way: overcoming self-defeating behavior

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self-esteem and positive mental attitude

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self-help / personal growth / self-esteem

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Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior

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Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior [Goulston, Mark, Goldberg, Philip] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior

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A rollicking, rhyming, and inspirational picture book for fans of Oh, the Places You'll Go! and every child who is frustrated by what they can't do...YET! The Magical Yet is the perfect tool for parents and educators to turn a negative into a positive when helping children cope with the inevitable difficult learning moments we all face. Whether a child or an adult, this encouraging and uplifting book reminds us that we all have things we haven't learned...yet!

Each of us, from the day we're born, is accompanied by a special companion-the Yet. Can't tie your shoes? Yet! Can't ride a bike? Yet! Can't play the bassoon? Don't worry, Yet is there to help you out.

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The Magical Yet (The Magical Yet, 1) [DiTerlizzi, Angela, Alvarez, Lorena, Alvarez, Lorena] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Magical Yet (The Magical Yet, 1)

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the power of letting go: how to drop everything that’s holding you back

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power of letting go; the pathway of surrender; david hawkins; self-care book; grief; bereavement; stress management; the stress solution; the 4 pillar plan; dr rangan chatterjee; hygge; lifestyle improvement

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The Power of Letting Go: How to drop everything that's holding you back

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Mindset: The New Psychology of Success [Dweck, Carol S.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

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challenging mindset: why a growth mindset makes a difference in learning – and what to do when it doesn’t (corwin teaching essentials)

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education / teaching methods & materials / general

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education / teaching methods & materials / general

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Challenging Mindset: Why a Growth Mindset Makes a Difference in Learning - and What to Do When It Doesn't (Corwin Teaching Essentials)

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Challenging Mindset: Why a Growth Mindset Makes a Difference in Learning - and What to Do When It Doesn't (Corwin Teaching Essentials) [Nottingham, James A., Larsson, Bosse] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.

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the growth mindset coach: a teacher's month-by-month handbook for empowering students to achieve

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The Growth Mindset Coach: A Teacher's Month-by-Month Handbook for Empowering Students to Achieve

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A complete and easy-to-follow guide for inspiring every student with the power of growth mindsetCreated by teachers for teachers, this is the ultimate guide for unleashing students' potential through creative lessons, empowering messages and innovative teaching. The Growth Mindset Coach provides ...

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the positive shift: mastering mindset to improve happiness

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The Positive Shift: Mastering Mindset to Improve Happiness, Health, and Longevity

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Developing a Growth Mindset with Carol Dweck

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Recognizing and Overcoming False Growth Mindset - For Educators

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Recognizing and Overcoming False Growth Mindset

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Examples of a false growth mindset include praising effort over progress, affirming students’ potential without enabling them, and blaming their mindset instead of refocusing it.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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One shift in thinking has drastically improved my parenting, and that is moving from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset about being a mom. This growth mindset says - you are always learning and it's never too late to make a more positive choice. When you make a mistake it's not an indication that you are doomed to be a failure; it's an opportunity to grow.

The concept is easy enough to understand, but changing the thinking habits I had wasn't as simple. One of the interesting things about growth mindset that Carol Dweck states in her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, is that we can have a growth mindset about one area of life, but not another - that's how I was about parenting. I had a growth mindset about things like creativity and academic learning. However, when it came to parenting, I expected myself to be a natural at being a mom.

I felt so awful about making mistakes in parenting. I'd feel so terribly guilty that I could barely make room for more positive, growth oriented thoughts. However, over time I discovered certain phrases that would quiet down the negative judgmental inner voice and allow me to learn instead of getting stuck in a place of depression and hopelessness. Here is a collection of those phrases that encourage a growth mindset about parenting.

10 Phrases to Encourage a Growth Mindset in Parenting

Always learning - short and simple, you can think about this phrase to remind yourself that it's healthy to be in the process of learning, you don't have to know everything.

Connection, not perfection - this is my personal favorite growth mindset phrase for remembering the priority in my relationships is connection, not getting every detail perfect. It is useful to think when I find myself getting stressed about a family event not going as planned, when I want to support a friend and don't quite know the right words, or when I find myself waiting for just the right time to talk or play with my kids. Connection, not perfection nudges me towards what matters most.

I'm in tune with my kids and I can make adjustments to our routines when needed. Have you ever felt like a failure when your perfectly worked out routine falls to pieces? It's helpful to remember that your job is actually paying attention to this and making a change.

This used to work for us (or I thought this would work for us) but I am empowered - I can make a change when things aren't working. It can be hard to have a growth mindset when something you thought would be perfect for your family....isn't. We put a lot of store in parenting choices like schooling, breastfeeding, foods we feed our kids, childcare, sleeping arrangements and so on. It's not to say the way we handle these decision isn't important, they are. However it is a mistake to believe there is one right way and if you find it everything will be great. Sometimes we have to make a change, and it can be humbling and scary, but holding on to patterns that don't work for your family is no way to be a leader. Which leads us to another phrase that helps you have a growth mindset about parenting...

It takes strength and wisdom to recognize you need to change course, and then take action to make that change.

I made a mistake and I am a big enough person to learn from it and move forward instead of clinging to something that isn't working. Sometimes it stings to admit we were wrong, but compounding a mistake by clinging to something that isn't working for you isn't the answer. Learning from it and moving on is freeing.

It's never too late to make a more positive choice. Sometimes I've been caught up thinking that everything is a mess - why bother? This phrase reminds me that making a more positive choice is always an option.

I can change directions. I can start over from now. Some days we need a do-over. Permission granted. You can start over from now.

I am a work in progress and this is part of that progress. It's great to have a vision of where you want to be, but sometimes it's easy to forget that the process of learning and growing has great value. You are someone valuable right now.

I always have potential for growth. Yes you do - you are not too old, too broken, too dumb. You have potential for growth. It's helpful for me to remember I am not stuck being one particular way; through effort and time I can change if I wish.

What have I learned from this? Reflecting on what you've learned, even from the most uncomfortable situations, helps you grow.

Mistakes mean I'm learning. I always loved the song my Dad would sing to me when I was a kid that had a chorus that said, "Oops, you made a mistake, and you're beautiful to me."

What phrase do you like to say to yourself to help you remember that you don't have to be perfect?

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10 Phrases to Help You Develop a Growth Mindset in Parenting

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One shift in thinking has drastically improved my parenting, and that is moving from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset about being a mom. This growth mindset says - you are always learning and it's never too late to make a more positive choice.

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cognitive styles in children;united states.

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business & economics / decision-making & problem solving

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cognitive styles in children - united states

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cognitive styles in children;united states.

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education / educational policy & reform / general

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early childhood (incl. preschool & kindergarten)

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early childhood education - united states

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education/early childhood (incl. preschool & kindergarten)

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business & economics / decision-making & problem solving

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education / educational policy & reform / general

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education/early childhood (incl. preschool & kindergarten)

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How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character

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How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character [Tough, Paul] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character

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"If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve," Debbie Millman counseled in one of the best commencement speeches ever given, urging: "Do what you love, and don't stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities..." Far from Pollyanna platitude, this advice actually reflects what modern psychology knows about how belief systems about our own abilities and potential fuel our behavior and predict our success. Much of that understanding stems from the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, synthesized in her remarkably insightful Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (public library) - an inquiry into the power of our beliefs, both conscious and unconscious, and how changing even the simplest of them can have profound impact on nearly every aspect of our lives.

One of the most basic beliefs we carry about ourselves, Dweck found in her research, has to do with how we view and inhabit what we consider to be our personality. A "fixed mindset" assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens which we can't change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled. A "growth mindset," on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities. Out of these two mindsets, which we manifest from a very early age, springs a great deal of our behavior, our relationship with success and failure in both professional and personal contexts, and ultimately our capacity for happiness.

The consequences of believing that intelligence and personality can be developed rather than being immutably engrained traits, Dweck found in her two decades of research with both children and adults, are remarkable. She writes:

For twenty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value. How does this happen? How can a simple belief have the power to transform your psychology and, as a result, your life?

Believing that your qualities are carved in stone - the fixed mindset - creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character - well, then you'd better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. It simply wouldn't do to look or feel deficient in these most basic characteristics.

[...]

I've seen so many people with this one consuming goal of proving themselves - in the classroom, in their careers, and in their relationships. Every situation calls for a confirmation of their intelligence, personality, or character. Every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I feel like a winner or a loser? . . .

There's another mindset in which these traits are not simply a hand you're dealt and have to live with, always trying to convince yourself and others that you have a royal flush when you're secretly worried it's a pair of tens. In this mindset, the hand you're dealt is just the starting point for development. This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way - in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments - everyone can change and grow through application and experience.

Do people with this mindset believe that anyone can be anything, that anyone with proper motivation or education can become Einstein or Beethoven? No, but they believe that a person's true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it's impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training.

At the heart of what makes the "growth mindset" so winsome, Dweck found, is that it creates a passion for learning rather than a hunger for approval. Its hallmark is the conviction that human qualities like intelligence and creativity, and even relational capacities like love and friendship, can be cultivated through effort and deliberate practice. Not only are people with this mindset not discouraged by failure, but they don't actually see themselves as failing in those situations - they see themselves as learning. Dweck writes:

Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? 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. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.

This idea, of course, isn't new - if anything, it's the fodder of self-help books and vacant "You can do anything!" platitudes. What makes Dweck's work different, however, is that it is rooted in rigorous research on how the mind - especially the developing mind - works, identifying not only the core drivers of those mindsets but also how they can be reprogrammed.

Dweck and her team found that people with the fixed mindset see risk and effort as potential giveaways of their inadequacies, revealing that they come up short in some way. But the relationship between mindset and effort is a two-way street:

It's not just that some people happen to recognize the value of challenging themselves and the importance of effort. Our research has shown that this comes directly from the growth mindset. When we teach people the growth mindset, with its focus on development, these ideas about challenge and effort follow. . . .

As you begin to understand the fixed and growth mindsets, you will see exactly how one thing leads to another-how a belief that your qualities are carved in stone leads to a host of thoughts and actions, and how a belief that your qualities can be cultivated leads to a host of different thoughts and actions, taking you down an entirely different road.

[...]

The mindsets change what people strive for and what they see as success. . . they change the definition, significance, and impact of failure. . . they change the deepest meaning of effort.

Dweck cites a poll of 143 creativity researchers, who concurred that the number-one trait underpinning creative achievement is precisely the kind of resilience and fail-forward perseverance attributed to the growth mindset. She writes:

When you enter a mindset, you enter a new world. In one world - 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.

In one world, failure is about having a setback. Getting a bad grade. Losing a tournament. Getting fired. Getting rejected. It means you're not smart or talented. In the other world, failure is about not growing. Not reaching for the things you value. It means you're not fulfilling your potential.

In one world, effort is a bad thing. It, like failure, means you're not smart or talented. If you were, you wouldn't need effort. In the other world, effort is what makes you smart or talented.

But her most remarkable research, which has informed present theories of why presence is more important than praise in teaching children to cultivate a healthy relationship with achievement, explores how these mindsets are born - they form, it turns out, very early in life. In one seminal study, Dweck and her colleagues offered four-year-olds a choice: They could either redo an easy jigsaw puzzle, or try a harder one. Even these young children conformed to the characteristics of one of the two mindsets - those with "fixed" mentality stayed on the safe side, choosing the easier puzzles that would affirm their existing ability, articulating to the researchers their belief that smart kids don't make mistakes; those with the "growth" mindset thought it an odd choice to begin with, perplexed why anyone would want to do the same puzzle over and over if they aren't learning anything new. In other words, the fixed-mindset kids wanted to make sure they succeeded in order to seem smart, whereas the growth-mindset ones wanted to stretch themselves, for their definition of success was about becoming smarter.

Dweck quotes one seventh-grade girl, who captured the difference beautifully:

I think intelligence is something you have to work for ... it isn't just given to you.... Most kids, if they're not sure of an answer, will not raise their hand to answer the question. But what I usually do is raise my hand, because if I'm wrong, then my mistake will be corrected. Or I will raise my hand and say, 'How would this be solved?' or 'I don't get this. Can you help me?' Just by doing that I'm increasing my intelligence.

Things got even more interesting when Dweck brought people into Columbia's brain-wave lab to study how their brains behaved as they answered difficult questions and received feedback. What she found was that those with a fixed mindset were only interested in hearing feedback that reflected directly on their present ability, but tuned out information that could help them learn and improve. They even showed no interest in hearing the right answer when they had gotten a question wrong, because they had already filed it away in the failure category. Those with a growth mindset, on the other hand, were keenly attentive to information that could help them expand their existing knowledge and skill, regardless of whether they'd gotten the question right or wrong - in other words, their priority was learning, not the binary trap of success and failure.

These findings are especially important in education and how we, as a culture, assess intelligence. In another study of hundreds of students, mostly adolescents, Dweck and her colleagues gave each ten fairly challenging problems from a nonverbal IQ test, then praised the student for his or her performance - most had done pretty well. But they offered two types of praise: Some students were told "Wow, you got [X many] right. That's a really good score. You must be smart at this," while others, "Wow, you got [X many] right. That's a really good score. You must have worked really hard." In other words, some were praised for ability and others for effort. The findings, at this point, are unsurprising yet jarring:

The ability praise pushed students right into the fixed mindset, and they showed all the signs of it, too: When we gave them a choice, they rejected a challenging new task that they could learn from. They didn't want to do anything that could expose their flaws and call into question their talent.

[...]

In contrast, when students were praised for effort, 90 percent of them wanted the challenging new task that they could learn from.

The most interesting part, however, is what happened next: Dweck and her colleagues gave the students a subsequent set of harder problems, on which the students didn't do so well. Suddenly, the ability-praised kids thought they weren't so smart or gifted after all. Dweck puts it poignantly:

If success had meant they were intelligent, then less-than-success meant they were deficient.

But for the effort-praised kids, the difficulty was simply an indication that they had to put in more effort, not a sign of failure or a reflection of their poor intellect. Perhaps most importantly, the two mindsets also impacted the kids' level of enjoyment - everyone enjoyed the first round of easier questions, which most kids got right, but as soon as the questions got more challenging, the ability-praised kids no longer had any fun, while the effort-praised ones not only still enjoyed the problems but even said that the more challenging, the more fun. The latter also had significant improvements in their performance as the problems got harder, while the former kept getting worse and worse, as if discouraged by their own success-or-failure mindset.

It gets better - or worse, depending on how we look at it: The most unsettling finding came after the IQ questions were completed, when the researchers asked the kids to write private letters to their peers relaying the experience, including a space for reporting their scores on the problems. To Dweck's devastation, the most toxic byproduct of the fixed mindset turned out to be dishonesty: Forty percent of the ability-praised kids lied about their scores, inflating them to look more successful. She laments:

In the fixed mindset, imperfections are shameful - especially if you're talented - so they lied them away. What's so alarming is that we took ordinary children and made them into liars, simply by telling them they were smart.

This illustrates the key difference between the two mindsets - for those with a growth one, "personal success is when you work your hardest to become your best," whereas for those with a fixed one, "success is about establishing their superiority, pure and simple. Being that somebody who is worthier than the nobodies." For the latter, setbacks are a sentence and a label. For the former, they're motivating, informative input - a wakeup call.

But one of the most profound applications of this insight has to do not with business or education but with love. Dweck found that people exhibited the same dichotomy of dispositions in their personal relationships: Those with a fixed mindset believed their ideal mate would put them on a pedestal and make them feel perfect, like "the god of a one-person religion," whereas those with the growth mindset preferred a partner who would recognize their faults and lovingly help improve them, someone who would encourage them to learn new things and become a better person. The fixed mindset, it turns out, is at the root of many of our most toxic cultural myths about "true love." Dweck writes:

The growth mindset says all of these things can be developed. All - you, your partner, and the relationship - are capable of growth and change.

In the fixed mindset, the ideal is instant, perfect, and perpetual compatibility. Like it was meant to be. Like riding off into the sunset. Like "they lived happily ever after."

[...]

One problem is that people with the fixed mindset expect everything good to happen automatically. It's not that the partners will work to help each other solve their problems or gain skills. It's that this will magically occur through their love, sort of the way it happened to Sleeping Beauty, whose coma was cured by her prince's kiss, or to Cinderella, whose miserable life was suddenly transformed by her prince.

This also applies to the myth of mind-reading, where the fixed mindset believes that an ideal couple should be able to read each other's minds and finish each other's sentences. She cites a study that invited people to talk about their relationships:

Those with the fixed mindset felt threatened and hostile after talking about even minor discrepancies in how they and their partner saw their relationship. Even a minor discrepancy threatened their belief that they shared all of each other's views.

But most destructive of all relationship myths is the belief that if it requires work, something is terribly wrong and that any discrepancy of opinions or preferences is indicative of character flaws on behalf of one's partner. Dweck offers a reality check:

Just as there are no great achievements without setbacks, there are no great relationships without conflicts and problems along the way.

When people with a fixed mindset talk about their conflicts, they assign blame. Sometimes they blame themselves, but often they blame their partner. And they assign blame to a trait - a character flaw.

But it doesn't end there. When people blame their partner's personality for the problem, they feel anger and disgust toward them.

And it barrels on: Since the problem comes from fixed traits, it can't be solved. So once people with the fixed mindset see flaws in their partners, they become contemptuous of them and dissatisfied with the whole relationship.

Those with the growth mindset, on the other hand, can acknowledge their partners' imperfections, without assigning blame, and still feel that they have a fulfilling relationship. They see conflicts as problems of communication, not of personality or character. This dynamic holds true as much in romantic partnerships as in friendship and even in people's relationships with their parents. Dweck summarizes her findings:

When people embark on a relationship, they encounter a partner who is different from them, and they haven't learned how to deal with the differences. In a good relationship, people develop these skills and, as they do, both partners grow and the relationship deepens. But for this to happen, people need to feel they're on the same side. . . . As an atmosphere of trust developed, they [become] vitally interested in each other's development.

What it all comes down to is that a mindset is an interpretative process that tells us what is going on around us. In the fixed mindset, that process is scored by an internal monologue of constant judging and evaluation, using every piece of information as evidence either for or against such assessments as whether you're a good person, whether your partner is selfish, or whether you are better than the person next to you. In a growth mindset, on the other hand, the internal monologue is not one of judgment but one of voracious appetite for learning, constantly seeking out the kind of input that you can metabolize into learning and constructive action.

In the rest of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Dweck goes on to explore how these fundamental mindsets form, what their defining characteristics are in different contexts of life, and how we can rewire our cognitive habits to adopt the much more fruitful and nourishing growth mindset.
Public domain photographs via Flickr Commons

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Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives

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"If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve," Debbie Millman counseled in one of the best commencement speeches ever given, urging: "Do what you love, and don't stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities..."

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The Power of belief -- mindset and success | Eduardo Briceno | TEDxManhattanBeach

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Movies are a great tool for character development. They can explain important life lessons and help reinforce the messages we're trying to teach our children.

We put together a list of great movies and videos with characters who demonstrate a growth mindset and qualities such as grit, perseverance, courage, and determination.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our FREE Your Words Matter Volume 2 Kit. With these 10 one-page parenting guides, you will know exactly how to speak to your child to help them stand up for themselves, be more confident, and develop a growth mindset.

Reminder: Please preview or read about the suggested movies and videos to ensure they are appropriate for your child.

Animated Films

Encanto (2021)

Encanto tells the tale of an extraordinary family who lives hidden in the mountains of Colombia. The magic of the Encanto has blessed every child in the family with a unique gift except one, Mirabel. But when she discovers that the magic surrounding the Encanto is in danger, she might just be her exceptional family's last hope.

Rating PG

Sing 2 (2021)

This family-friendly feel-good comedy shares the power of music and delivers the message of never giving up on your dreams.

Rating PG

Sing (2016)

This film teaches that nothing can hold you back. You can always pick yourself up and be stronger than ever.

Rating PG

Moana (2016)

The characters Maui and Moana demonstrated a great deal of perseverance, hard work, and determination.

Rating PG

Trolls (2016)

This movie teaches important lessons including the importance of being confident and believing in yourself.

Rating PG

Finding Nemo (2003)

This movie teaches the importance of stepping outside your comfort zone and try new things even if they scare you at first.

Rating G

Chicken Run (2)

This is an exciting and original story about a group of chickens determined to fly the coop. It teaches that if at first you don't succeed, you try and try again!

Rating G

Cars 3 (2017)

No matter how old you are, you always have more to learn; and the fact regardless of your gender or what you look like, you should be allowed to compete and reach for your dreams!

Rating PG

Ferdinand (2017)

Ferdinand is a strong, confident character who's a great role model of courage and compassion.

Rating PG

Feature Films

Hotel for Dogs (2009)

It is a funny, heartwarming and inspiring animal adventure that shows how far love, determination and imagination can take you.

Rating PG

Hidden Figures (2016)

It is based on the true story of three of the first black "human computers" at NASA, who helped send the first American into orbit. The story teaches that when you have a grand vision, your success starts with the right mindset.

Rating PG

Wonder (2017)

The movie has clear positive messages about choosing kindness, appreciating everyone for who they are (rather than what they look like), and true friendship; empathy and perseverance are also strong themes.

Rating PG

A mischievous dog befriends a lonely young girl in a new town and helps her make new friends.

Rating PG

Charl o tte's Web (2006)

Fern rescues a runty piglet, raises it as her own and names him Wilbur. Charlotte, a gentle and wise spider who befriended the lonely Wilbur, vows to save his life.

Rating G

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Dorothy and her dog Toto are caught in a tornado's path and end up in the land of Oz. Here she meets some memorable friends and foes in her journey to meet the Wizard of Oz who everyone says can help her return home.

Not Rated

Anne of Green Gables (1985)

An orphan girl, sent to an elderly brother and sister by mistake, charms her new home and community with her fiery spirit and imagination.

Not Rated

Akeelah Anderson's life is not easy but she is changing the world... one word at a time.

Rating PG

Short Animated Films

Soar (2014)

With a fairytale-like storyline, 'Soar' explores hope and perseverance with a glimmer of magic.

Rating G

The Boy Who Learned to Fly (2017)

Based on true events from Usain Bolt's life, this is an animated short film showcasing his unique story and what drives him as an elite athlete. From humble beginnings in a Jamaican schoolyard to his ascendence on the world stage, Bolt finds a way to fly past the pressure.

Rating G

For The Birds (2001)

This video can be used in a number of ways to teach a lesson to students (even adults) about the consequences of bullying!

Elmo Doesn't Give Up (2017)

Elmo's dad teaches him to keep trying and not give up! Elmo learns the more he tries and practices, the better he becomes.

Videos

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Top 75 Growth Mindset Movies & Videos for Children

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Movies are a great tool to teach important life lessons and can help reinforce messages we're trying to teach our children. We put together a list of great movies and videos in which characters demonstrate a growth mindset and important qualities like grit, perseverance, courage, determination, and others.

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The Backwards Brain Bicycle - Smarter Every Day 133

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How Many Times Should You Try Before Success?

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"I'm not good at math!" "I don't know how to hit a baseball." "I can't play that song." How should a parent respond? author Carol Dweck says we can help our children by reminding them that even if they haven't "yet," if they keep working at it, they can reach their goal.

See what reading expert Melissa Taylor says about inspiring kids to read.

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"I'm not good at math!" "I don't know how to hit a baseball." "I can't play that song." How should a parent respond? author Carol Dweck says we can help our children by reminding them that even if they haven't "yet," if they keep working at it, they can reach their goal.

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Mindset Kit - About Growth Mindset for Teachers

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Learn what a growth mindset is and why it’s important.

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PERTS offers educators resources, professional development, and tools for learning about and promoting adaptive academic mindsets.

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Big Life Kids Podcast - a growth mindset podcast for kids

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In each episode, Zara and Leo will travel the world to discover the living heroes that are making a difference in the world today.

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G-Words 20 Strategies for Fostering Grit & Growth Mindset

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Intro to Growth Mindset- An Interactive PowerPoint on Persistence and Mistakes

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Do you have students who have a difficult time doing anything that is a little challenging for them? Do they quit right away? Do they think they are "dumb" if they make mistakes? Do they think if something is challenging, it means they aren't smart?

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Are You iOS or Android? Subscribe Now! Authentic Parenting As we raise our children, we grow ourselves. Join us weekly and listen to the FREE podcast for parents like you as we talk about the importance of healing from our traumas, making sense of our stories, breaking free from our patterns and triggers, [...]

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Top 40 Growth Mindset Podcasts for Kids, Teens, and Parents

This article includes free printables

Podcasts are an excellent way to have your kids LEARN while being entertained.

And if you listen to podcasts together it can become a special time for the whole family, whether on long car rides or while at home.

There are some amazing podcasts out there! We did the research for you. Below is a list of 40 top growth mindset and character-building podcasts for you and your kids.

Before you move onbesure to sign up for our FREE weekly printables carefully crafted to teach your kids growth mindset, resilience, and much more. Sign up below to make sure you're on the list!

Once signed up you will immediately receive our popular Parent's Guide to a Growth Mindset.

Podcasts for Kids

Wow in the World

This podcast is a new way for families to connect, look up and discover the wonders of the world around them. The hosts Mindy and Guy guide curious kids and their grown-ups away from their screens and on a journey.

Story Time

Story Time is a fortnightly audiobook podcast for children ages 2-13.

Each story is usually less than 20 minutes long, hopefully just long enough to keep your toddler, preschoolers, and little ones engaged.

But Why?

This show answers questions submitted by kids. It tackles topics large and small, about nature, words, even the end of the world.

Sparkle Stores

Original audio stories for families around the world.

Be Calm on Ahway Island

Be Calm on Ahway Island features short stories for kids to listen to free! Each relaxing story contains a guided meditation and a positive message.

Podcasts for Teens

Unstoppable Teen

Kevin Mincher and his guests share ideas to help teenagers, parents and teachers experience more success and happiness.

Youth Radio

This NPR podcast offers stories from young essayists and reporters about their experiences. From single moms to kids avoiding the wrong track - or getting back on the right one - their stories open up a new world to the listeners.

The Moth - True Stories

The Moth Podcast features re-airs of all new episodes of The Moth Radio Hour, plus additional stories from the vast archive recorded over the past two decades. Episodes are released every Tuesday.

Mentors 4 Teens: College, Scholarship, and Career Guidance Podcast

In this podcast, you will learn the latest and best tips, advice, and guidance designed to ensure elite university acceptance, scholarship success, and most importantly helping your teenager discover what gets them fired up to ensure they find a career that brings both happiness and financial stability.

Podcasts for Parents

The Child Repair Guide

The pediatrician and dad Dr. Steve Silvestro brings the wisdom and insights of the world's best childhood health and wellness experts. He gives parents the best tools possible to raise happy, healthy, confident kids.

Listen to the Growth Mindset & Grit episode (featuring Alexandra Eidens, the founder of the Big Life Journal)

Unruffled

Janet Lansbury is a parenting expert and the author of two books on babies and toddlers. Her soothing, reassuring advice makes you feel as if you really can be a calm, confident parent.

Her approach focuses on respect for the child and acceptance of their emotions and development.

The Mindful Kind

The Mindful Kind, hosted by Rachael Kable, shares exciting insights into mindfulness journeys and provides listeners with simple and effective practices to incorporate into their own lives.

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Top 40 Growth Mindset Podcasts for Kids, Teens, and Parents

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One easy way to help children develop a growth mindset is to introduce them to podcasts which promote persistence, love of learning, and other key growth mindset ideas. Here's a list of our favorite and most popular podcasts for you and your kids!

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Do you ever give up when things are difficult? Sometimes we all say things like, " I'm bad at math, so there's no point in studying " or " I can't change-so why bother trying ." This is called having a fixed mindset . When you have a fixed mindset, you take failure as evidence that you're not good at something.

On the other hand, a growth mindset is a way of viewing yourself and the world that says, " I may not know how to do this now, but with effort, I can learn. " People with a growth mindset believe they can learn from challenges and setbacks-that they have constant potential for growth, change, and improvement. So, how can you develop a growth mindset?

Written by experts in growth mindset and neuroscience, this easy-to-use workbook will show you how to change the way you think, so you can change your life. You'll learn powerful, proven-effective skills for coping with difficult feelings-including sadness, worry, and anger. And, most importantly, you'll find the tools you need to transform a fixed mindset into a growth mindset, make change happen, and reach your highest aspirations.

If you want to go from " No, I can't do it ," to " Yes, bring it on! " this workbook will show you how to build a growth mindset and boost your confidence, so you can be your very best. Look out, world!

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The Growth Mindset Workbook for Teens: Say Yes to Challenges, Deal with Difficult Emotions, and Reach Your Full Potential

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The Growth Mindset Workbook for Teens: Say Yes to Challenges, Deal with Difficult Emotions, and Reach Your Full Potential: Schleider PhD, Jessica L., Mullarkey PhD, Michael C., Dobias BS, Mallory L.: 9781684035571: Books - Amazon

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A growth mindset contrasts with a fixed mindset. The latter is the limiting belief that the capacity to learn and improve cannot be meaningfully developed. The growth mindset, conversely, is open to the effort even if it takes time. Proponents of the theory contend that adopting a growth mindset, and rejecting a fixed mindset, can help people be more open to success.

Some people get stuck in thoughts such as I'm not good at anything. I always strike out. Everyone else does better than I do. They are convinced that they can't learn anything new, and that it's far too late for them to try because they will fail anyway. They feel they struggle too much in their tasks, and they feel inferior by the seemingly easy success of the people around them.

Proponents of the theory propose that individuals with a growth mindset will be more oriented toward self-improvement and more likely to persist in the face of challenges and failures. They will treat obstacles as opportunities to grow rather than signs of their abilities being inadequate. However, persistence is useful only up to a point, sometimes a person has to pivot and try other things to reach their objectives and goals.

The autodidact is the person who logs onto YouTube to figure out how to fix the toilet. This person is happy to learn unsystematically and informally, with no instruction whatsoever. They are self-taught, so to speak. Conversely, formal education is big on passive learning; everything is done by rote and teaching to the test is foregrounded; kids have to score high marks on standardized tests if they want to get into the college of their choice. Yet such passive learning is hardly a way to learn or learn with excitement.

Many of history's most celebrated masters were self-taught. We can argue that Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, and Leonardo Da-Vinci were avid self-teachers. Lincoln learned prose from the Bible and Shakespeare, and he learned logic from books of law. In fact, many of our lauded thinkers are considered self-learners. Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and Mark Zuckerberg are all college drop-outs. Yet they are among the world's wealthiest individuals to date.

You can argue that people can flow from growth to fixed thinking, or maybe even the other way around. When a person is criticized, judged, or blamed, it's easy for them to feel defensive and inadequate. That growth thinking may well give way to a fixed frame of mind, stunting the ability to learn. People who work for bullies, can move from growth to fixed thinking poste haste.

It's possible that growth-mindset interventions boost some students, but not others. In one of the largest experiments, which focused on ninth graders in the U.S., students were given a relatively brief intervention (less than an hour, in total) in which they learned about mindsets and how behaviors such as putting in effort and changing one's strategy could be helpful. For lower-achieving students, the researchers reported, the intervention was followed by an average gain of 0.10 GPA points.

Educators can try these various methods:

* Pose challenges and obstacles as opportunities

* Give constructive criticism and encourage acceptance of criticism

* Encourage persistence

* Encourage failure as a part of the learning process

* Encourage a positive attitude

* Show that having goals and purpose can help

The language you use matters. If you cling to words such as always, never, forever, you are possibly an all-or-nothing thinker. Things always go wrong for me. I will never get the right equations. I am forever a failure. These are typical thoughts of a person with more of a fixed mindset. Doing away with all-or-nothing thinking may help. Also useful is using the word yet, this word implies that you will reach your goal soon.

Yes, you can live a more purposeful and meaningful existence by being open to everyday challenges through learning and development. You can put aside thoughts of what has to happen in life, and opt for acceptance of what life brings. In addition, swapping out negative framing like perfection and obstacle for positive ones such as opportunity and average will help as well.

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There are enviable individuals who acquire skills and knowledge effortlessly, others are more orderly and achievement-focused than are their peers, and still others who exhibit unusual talents. While such positive traits are not evenly distributed, they are not necessarily out of reach for those who are not "natural" high achievers.

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According to the latest psychological research, developing a growth mindset and navigating your life through its framework can help you learn more effectively, be more motivated, and ultimately be more successful!

Growth Mindset Guide uses an evidence-based approach designed to guide you through learning about what Fixed and Growth Mindsets are and implementing the latter into your life. Learn through 3 simple lessons and activities developed to improve your mindset and develop life-long learning strategies. These skills can be put to use in the classroom, workplace, and beyond! Ultimately, this app will help you explore the science and practicality behind the idea that "you can learn anything!"

A fixed mindset is the belief that you are born a certain way, with a certain amount of intelligence or a certain personality that you cannot change.

A growth mindset is the belief that the traits that make you who you are, such as your intelligence, can be cultivated and changed through effort.

This app will lead you through 3 different modules that will cover the basics of Growth Mindset.

Module 1: The Growth Mindset

Learn the basics about Growth and Fixed Mindsets. You will also learn that most people tend to have a mix of both mindsets as well as some other common misconceptions.

Module 2: The Truth About Your Brain

Learn about Neuroplasticity - how your brain changes and grows when you challenge yourself, and how this relates to having a Growth Mindset.

Module 3: Learning From Our Mistakes

Learn how mistakes are a key part of the learning process, though both can be helpful and harmful depending on how you use them. Having a Growth Mindset allows you to take advantage of mistakes instead of letting them deter you. The growth mindset helps to identify the positive opportunities that come out of mistakes.

The developer, Inquiry Health LLC, indicated that the app's privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer's privacy policy.

Data Not Linked to You

The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

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‎According to the latest psychological research, developing a growth mindset and navigating your life through its framework can help you learn more effectively, be more motivated, and ultimately be more successful! Growth Mindset Guide uses an evidence-based approach designed to guide you through l...

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Johanna Wright is a fine artist, author and illustrator, passionate about the magic of creative energy and its ability to heal, transform and inspire. Wright has authored and illustrated over ten picture and middle grade books, including the award-winning Orchestra Pit and The Secret Circus. Her work has been published by Scholastic, Penguin, Roaring Brook Press, and Boyds Mills Press. She has sold thousands of original artwork pieces worldwide and has collaborated on painting projects that have appeared in print in Vogue, Vanity Fair, Elle, and O Magazine.

Over the last ten years, Wright has taught workshops, providing prompts and exercises to guide participants in connecting with their authentic selves through their creative process. She has presented in countless classrooms, including the Pacific Northwest College of Art and the Oregon College of Art and Craft.

Wright grew up in a new-age-minded community (all hippies, all the time), reading books like Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain, and Be Here Now by Ram Das. She continued her personal journey of meditation, creativity and self discovery into her life as an artist, author, into motherhood, and beyond.

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Yani was a YETi. His proud YETi family members and friends never stopped encouraging him. When Yani wanted to learn to tie his shoes, he thought he couldn't do it. But after a friendly reminder, Yani realized that he could not do it YET! He quickly figured out that with a little combination of hard work and help, he could do anything he put his mind to! Yani the YETi shows young children that learning tasks like tying your shoes is not always easy, but with the right mindset and perseverance, the "power of yet" is a character trait that helps children overcome hurdles.

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Yani was a YETi. His proud YETi family members and friends never stopped encouraging him. When Yani wanted to learn to tie his shoes, he thought he couldn't do it. But after a friendly reminder, Yani realized that he could not do it YET! He quickly figured out that with a little combination of ha...

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Growth Mindset Podcast

A growth mindset is the belief that you can do anything if you work for it.
Your host Sam Harris finds remarkable individuals doing extraordinary things and breaks the processes down to show how anyone can achieve anything.

Sam has launched several businesses, travelled the world, and nearly died a few times, all in the spirit of curiosity and adventure. Some highlights include touring North Korea to hitch-hiking across Kazakhstan. He brings his insatiable appetite for learning to the podcast and challenges his guests with unusual questions to bring listeners unique insights.

Recent Episodes

218: One Strategy to Increase Your Luck

May 24, 2022

Our beliefs and fears often hinder us from showing up whenever we want to do something that we are really interested in. And in this episode, there’s one strategy that I’ll be sharing with you to boost your luck through cont…

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A growth mindset is the belief that you can do anything if you work for it.
Your host Sam Harris finds remarkable individuals doing extraordinary things …

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World-class experts share their personal affirmations on ThinkUp