Summary Of Mindset By Carol Dweck

Throughout the book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck shares many different examples from her research on human motivation. Dweck, even added in some of her own personal experiences to help show how much of our conscious and unconscious thoughts really can affect us and how something like a simple change in wording when speaking to anyone or to yourself even can have such an impact on your future abilities of achievement and success. “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” (6)
Dweck in the end revealing through examples how you approach …show more content…
Having a fixed mindset is accepting the idea of having predetermined abilities, and talents that can only be proven or not proven. “two things that might reveal your inadequacies and show that you were not up to the task” (10). Leading them to be quick to give up when things get tough and to avoid new challenges that may require them to put in too much effort into learning something new because of the fear their already predetermined abilities will be proven to be not good enough making them a failure. Kids who are born smart, “don’t make mistakes,” they told us. (16) Young children afraid of taking on any challenge because they are constantly fearful of humiliating themselves by making a mistake, possibly revealing they are not smart. “Smart people always succeed,” (17) says the fixed mindset. If you succeed, you’re a smart person. So always go for the easy problem so that the success is more likely to help validate your smartness. Someone with a growth mindset would believe that traits are never fixed, that they can be learned, and even improved. Even when up against something challenging someone with a growth mindset would be very persistent, tenacious even, and would view any kind of criticism constructively. “I think intelligence is something you have to work for….it isn’t just given you”. Finding the safer puzzles to be boring, “People can get smarter,” the kids with the growth …show more content…
Dweck, shares that when the freshman students arrived to register, they were once asked if they would like to improve their English skills while studying at the university. Ultimately, all the students with a fixed mindset were not very interested in putting any extra effort in to a new learning opportunity, and those with a growth mindset showed excitement and interest in the idea of gaining new knowledge to succeed. As Dweck goes on to explain, when someone has a fixed mindset it can really get in the way of your growth and development because “having a fixed mindset turns people into non-learners.” (18)
Dweck also shares how many athletes become successful by their ability to turn their failures into motivation, the power of a growth mindset can be a starting point for change. With a developed growth mindset, you will no longer view future situations as being so predetermined as win or lose but as each new chance to perform with a positive attitude and drive to do whatever it takes to win. Dweck quotes basketball coach John Wooden, “I believe ability can get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there. “(97) An athlete with talent will not continue to win without drive, time, effort and