Mindset

 

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Quick: decide whether you "agree" or "disagree" with each of these 4 statements:


Agree or disagree:

1. You are a certain kind of person, and there is not much that can be done to really change that.



2. No matter what kind of person you are, you can always change substantially.



3. You can do things differently, but the important parts of who you are can't really be changed.



4.   You can always change basic things about the kind of person you are.


Questions 1 and 3 are fixed-mindset questions. Questions 2 and 4 reflect the growth mindset. Which mindset did you agree with more? You can be a mixture, but most people lean toward one or the other.

(taken from Carol Dweck's book, Mindset)

Did you find yourself identifying more so with the fixed mindset or the growth mindset in this short set of questions? Or did you find yourself ending up with a mixture?

The concept of mindset is a rather interesting one, and perhaps one we are all familiar with. We know that having a bad attitude can ruin your day. Think about a time when as soon as you woke up, things started "going wrong," and you thought to yourself that the whole day would be bad (and it probably was, unless some really good external thing happened to you). Then, think about a time when you woke up in a really good mood and it just felt like it was going to be a good day. Have you had similar experiences where your mindset led you to feel a certain way about a whole day's events?

What if you could control that sense, that mindset, and really just decide that the whole day was going to be good? Sound too good to be true? Well, it might be--unpleasant things do sometimes happen. However, we can control how we react to situations and feel in those situations by altering our mindset, or the way we look at something.

In her research, Carol Dweck (referenced above) compares two mindsets: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. The person with a fixed mindset tends to look at things as stable and unchangeable, most especially intelligence and skills. If you think you're smart, this is great, right? Nope. This person needs to prove to him or herself that he or she is intelligent or good at something. If a person with this kind of mindset makes a mistake, they often assume they are no longer smart or good at something. And of course, this leads them to not want to take "risks" (e.g. a challenging assignment at work or school) or try new things (e.g. a new, exciting sounding hobby). "That's a stupid assignment," they'll say. Or "I can't do that--I have no idea how to do it, and if I tried it, I'd suck at it and probably end up embarrassing myself." By making a mistake, they prove that they are stupid or incompetent, and therefore won't do things or will delay them due to a fear of failure. Sounds an awful lot like that perfectionism we hear about all the time, dontcha think?

But let's look at how a person with a growth mindset thinks about things. This kind of person thinks that they can become smarter (after all, the debate is out on what intelligence really means, anyways), and that they can learn new things if they try hard at learning them. The person with the growth mindset look at things like a curious child--no question is too "stupid" because people aren't born knowing everything; they become smart and learn by asking "stupid" questions. This kind of person may be wrong, but they look at their mistakes or lapses in knowledge as an opportunity to learn something new. They don't end taking every mistake as a blow to their self-esteem because they understand that mistakes are necessary for learning, in any area of life.

Dweck's research shows brain scan activiation that differs between these two kinds of mindsets. People show activation in areas associated with punishment and reward when in a fixed mindset. There's really something going on up there in that brain, eh! But perhaps the most important thing that Carol Dweck discovered in her research is that we can change our mindset. We can learn how to be more open to making mistakes, and by looking at how our difficulties enlighten us, and using them to learn, we thereby become smarter and more skilled people (defying the fixed mindset person's hypothesis that we just can't change or become smarter!).

I can definitely remember times when the fixed mindset has reigned. Just the other day I had an discussion on theories of intelligence with my boyfriend (ironically!) and got into a bit of a rut arguing with him (logical argument) as I took his criticism of one of my points as a criticism of my intelligence. I told him this, and we worked through it; he had no clue he was having that effect on me, and found my approach to the issue novel and insightful. But the issue wasn't him at all; it was definitely my mindset. The fact that I could have been wrong meant that I could have been stupid and not all-knowing, and not that I had simply overlooked a loophole in my thoughts or that I could learn something from his comments.

What do you all think--have you had times where you've engaged in the fixed mindset or the growth mindset? How did it affect you in that situation? Do you think you could benefit from working on changing your mindset?

I highly recommend you check out Carol Dweck's book here, and potentially consider it as a future read. It'll definitely change the way you think about success and learning, and the research can be applied not only to school and work but also to friendships, relationships, teaching, business, and many other important areas of life (nearly all! after all, life=learning).

Hope ya'll enjoyed!

Introduction, Change

Why, hello :)


I'm Thursday, or Ashley, whichever you prefer to call me. I could see myself taking a liking to this Thursday thing. Anyways, just a quick introduction here. Kat (Wednesday) had asked me to take part in this blog project, and I happily agreed. I will most likely be posting artwork in the future (yay!) as I am beginning to take up making art again. Today, however, I would like to start with a few words about a choice subject.


Change. I was originally going to post artwork on my first day of blogging (today! woohoo!), but have decided to write instead. In deciding to talk rather than post a drawing, I confronted my fear of change.  I did say informally that I might be posting artwork on the first day, so what if I annoy Kat or one of the other bloggers by changing my mind? But at that point, I realized that I did have good reasons for changing. I did not want to post the particular artwork I had mentioned just yet, and I had some other issues on my mind that seemed of more importance. Of course, being a student, I don't always have time to spontaneously create drawings, which was the case last night. So, in a twist of irony, I had to confront the issue I wanted to talk about on here. I chose to write about change, and by doing so, I let the shackles of the past fall away from my decision making process.


Sometimes we get so used to living in the same patterns and routines that we forget that we can change things.    We become like rats on squeaky wheels, running after a goal that forever eludes us (and having to put up with the obnoxious creaking of the wheel!). When this happens, we often start thinking that our life has to be the way it is, because it is so obviously hurtling in a single direction.


But I want to remind you of something amazing, because I think you already know it and need to remember it.


At any moment you can do something different.


You could take on a new profession. Eat a new food. Go somewhere you've never been. Work on the problems that you want to face.


It's all in your mindset.


You think you can't grow, you stay the same. If you're too afraid to ever try anything new, try anything different, welcome the ambiguity, greyness, and unsureness of life, you will miss out on a lot. You will miss out on meeting people and visiting places that might change you in a very deep and meaningful way.


I see students at school (I'm a third year psych student) who are afraid to talk to professors. I'm going to a small university (20-30 students in a classroom), too, so you would think people would take advantage of that kind of attention. But people come to college with this attitude that they don't need to learn anything, they don't need to challenge themselves, and they certainly don't need help changing (especially from professors!). It's a terrible attitude, because many of these students could have been hard-working, insightful people. They shackled themselves into a repetition of high school, basically. And it's not even intelligence...the importance of this falls away as in college your success is often based more highly on your motivation than your IQ.


Every inhibition you have right now is one you are holding on to. And I'm sure you have some good excuses for not changing, we all have things we could pin our responsibility on. But how is that helping you making your life more fulfilling?


 As a side note, we often doubt our ability to change something in our own lives. There's no reason to be highly critical of yourself when learning something new. Embrace the fact that you have to learn new skills to be anything different than you are now.


 It is not possible for you to wake up an accomplished musician tomorrow morning. Even prodigies have to practice to get to where they are; I've read before that some researchers say it takes about 20,000 hours of practice of an activity to become an "expert" in it. You can't beat yourself up about X, Y, or Z quality of you (I'm not where I want to be in life, I'm not recovered yet, I'm not happy enough, I should be smarter, I should work harder) when you haven't honestly worked on changing that quality! So you need to ask yourself: what do I need to do to change?




So as I begin sharing my journey here, I encourage you to find something that you can change in your life. Remember that the action comes from the mindset, and the person that accepts change and enacts change is the one who grows.


You don't have to like every change, controllable or uncontrollable.


You just have to want to grow, and start seeing the world as an opportunity to learn about yourself.
And there's no limits to what you can accomplish with this mindset. 


Much respect for your human capacity to grow and change,


AS