I read Carol Dweck’s seminal book Mindset: Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential at the end of last year. She outlines the differences in what she calls a “fixed mindset” and a “growth mindset” and pushes for the reader to understand the benefits they will gain from learning to adopt a growth mindset.
Here’s a quick definition of what Dweck means by each of the mindsets:
The Fixed mindset
A belief that your abilities and talents are set in stone and unchangeable. You are naturally gifted or not. Believing that you only have a certain amount of intelligence, or another character trait, leads those with a fixed mindset to need to prove and validate themselves over and over. It leads people to believe there are inherently flawed when making mistakes and this can be a permanent mark. For example, you might always judge yourself as unintelligent if you didn’t pass some of your exams at school. With a fixed mindset people tend to want to hide or deny their deficiencies, or blame others when things don’t go as planned. They feel the need to appear to be flawless. The fixed mindset encourages people to believe they are superior to others and therefore demean others. People with a fixed mindset tend to gravitate towards people who will reconfirm their self-esteem and abilities rather than challenge and encourage growth. This means that when relationships start to become harder work people with a fixed mindset see them as flawed, and not working, and they are then often doomed to fail. It’s the live happily ever after mentality without effort or hardwork.
The growth mindset
Is the belief that ability and talent can be nurtured and developed through hard work, learning and effort. True potential is unknown with a growth mindset and an individual sees mistakes and failures as ways of learning, growing and stretching themselves. People with this mindset are more able to take on board their flaws as they are open to continually developing themselves. A growth mindset allows us to thrive on challenge and become determined to keep learning and growing to enrich our lives. Someone with a growth mindset will enjoy the journey regardless of the outcome and throw themselves into activities even if they aren’t good at them to begin with. With a growth mindset people tend to seek out other people who will challenge them, encourage growth and even provide constructive criticism. They are able to embrace this feedback and learn from it, to continue growing throughout their lives. They are more likely to work hard at their relationships, compromise, listen to the other person’s points of view and therefore develop strong and long-lasting relationships.
Natural talent v effort
Dweck covers how the two mindsets affect so many aspects of life: at work, in our relationships, with our children and families, in our hobbies and sporting abilities. She quotes Malcolm Gladwell who said “as a society we value natural, effortless accomplishment over achievement through effort”. We can see this in many areas of life and the media perpetuates this idea of “natural talent”.
Michael Jordan and John McEnroe
Dweck uses case studies of John McEnroe and Michael Jordan to illustrate her points. John McEnroe she says had a classic fixed mindset. He believed he was the best tennis player, and he was for a time. But when things started to go against him, and he lost matches, he would blame everyone and everything else. He saw effort as casting doubt on his talents and believed if he was to succeed he needed to get out and perform 100% all of the time. McEnroe’s fixed mindset prevented him from looking at areas where he could improve. Instead he wished he played a team sport so he could conceal his flaws. He considered himself to be a finished product and therefore why did he need to work hard to be good when he was already the best.
Michael Jordan on the other hand embraced his failures. Each time he was knocked back he worked harder and harder to grow his talents. This is hard to imagine as the Michael Jordan we know now as one of the best basketball players of all time. He was cut from his High School team, and he was devastated, but instead of giving up this made him determined to work his hardest to do the thing he loved. He’d leave his house at 6am to practice and repeat the same shots over and over again until he nailed it and he would keep practising it after that too. His success stemmed from his mindset. He said “The mental toughness and the heart are a lot stronger than some of the physical advantages you might have. I’ve always said that and I’ve always believed that”.
Growth and fixed mindsets in children
Dweck covers how communicating with children is so important in terms of nurturing a growth mindset. She talks about how crucial it is to praise children for their effort rather than achievement. Indeed, there is robust evidence to show that praising achievements in kids actually does the opposite as it actually harms their motivation and performance.
This does not seem intuitive so let’s explain: by constantly praising accomplishments by saying to children “you are so clever/so smart/so talented” it gives them a boost, but only a temporarily. The moment things don’t go so well they think they are the opposite: “If success means they are smart then failure means they are dumb”. This means children are afraid to try new things as they fear failure and start to doubt themselves as soon as they don’t succeed in something. Dweck advises to keep away from praise directed at, intelligence and talent, but instead to praise the effort and work put in. she says children need honest and constructive feedback, without it they won’t learn and in their adult lives they will experience teaching, coaching and guidance as negative and meaning they aren’t good enough. Think about people in your workplace who might exhibit some of these characteristics – an inability to take on board constructive feedback and defensive behaviour towards anything they deem as not reassuring praise.
We all have both mindsets
It’s important to remember that this is by no means black and white. We will all exhibit the fixed and growth mindset at times and our task is to understand what triggers fixed mindset thinking.
What to do to nurture a growth mindset
Dweck provides many tips on how to cultivate a growth mindset and I’ve picked out my favourite ones here:
- Next time you struggle, get bored or want to give up trying, when you are doing something new because it gets hard, try to persevere. Push through the difficulties and imagine your brain forming new connections as you take on the challenge.
- When there is next a disagreement in one of your close relationships try to allow the other person to air their grievances and really listen and take on board their viewpoints. Try your hardest not to take their critique personally and try to avoid the blame game.
- Think about ways you could be less defensive about your mistakes in the workplace. Can you make more of the feedback you receive at work and see it as a way of learning and growing rather than being judged and criticised?
- Next time you are tempted to praise a child for their achievements try to comment on the process they used, their choices and efforts. For example, when something goes well. “I am so impressed by all of the revision and hard work you put in to that test, the results really showed how dedicated you were”. When things don’t go so well “everyone has different ways of learning, let’s work hard to find the way that works best for you”.
- Try to work out what triggers your fixed mindset (Dweck provides lots of tips in the book) and then give your fixed mindset a name.
I would highly recommend everyone gives this important book a read!
