Mindset For Success

A Mindset for Success Everybody has a mindset and it is up to each individual on how they apply it to their own life. Dr. Carol Dweck’s inspiring novel Mindset: The New Psychology of Success explores the differences between a fixed and growth mindset. Before reading this book I had no idea as to what the difference was between the mindsets. So, for some background, a fixed mindset is where someone believes that a person cannot learn new things. As Dr. Dweck puts it, “human qualities [are] carved in stone. You were smart or you weren’t, and failure meant you weren’t” (Dweck 4). On the other hand, a growth mindset is where a person continues to grow as they age. They also do not believe in failure as it is actually learning. Dr. Dweck

She starts off the book by asking a series of questions so the reader can identify with a certain mindset. I thought this was helpful as it allows the reader to determine which mindset they currently have and how they can change or continue to have that mindset. As the author says throughout the book, “you can change your mindset” therefore if you did happen to lean more towards the fixed mindset you could easily change it by focusing towards the growth mindset (Dweck 14). Next, Dr. Dweck explores the ideas of labels and how by changing a few words it affects the individual later. In one group she praises them for being smart. However in the other group, she tells them they must have worked hard to do well. The difference between the fixed and growth mindset lies in those few words: smart and work hard. The students who were told they were smart did not want to tarnish that label. They rejected challenges and new

I enjoyed the way she had so much evidence to back up her claims. She consistently had studies that showed how each mindset affected the students’ outcome of learning. However, her experiments about the fixed versus growth mindset had me puzzled. In her experiments she would get half the group thinking the way of the growth mindset and the other half thinking in the fixed mindset. I found myself asking throughout the story, if those kids which were fed the fixed mindset would be harmed. In other words would they be able to change back into the growth mindset or would they be permanently stuck in the fixed mindset? I feel like the kids future was not worth all the evidence she provided. From the reading standpoint, I believe that all her research was good. It made her novel extremely convincing. Before reading Mindset, I did not think about my mindset. I went through life attempting to do my best at everything. I am a perfectionist and therefore it is hard for me when I am wrong. However, I used my will to succeed to push on and do the things I want to accomplish. Now, after reading this book I can look at my mindset in a new way. I can focus more on attempting new challenges and giving effort rather than trying to be right about everything. This will help me to not only grow as a person, but try more things that I may not have done before. I thought the author did a great job at covering all