Belief has power.
Whether they are conscious or not, beliefs guide our thoughts.
Our thoughts guide our actions.
Our actions guide our results.
When people adopt a growth mindset, they believe that they can acquire new skills by putting
in effort.
And that is exactly what they do every day.
They make loads of effort to acquire new skills and therefore are always improving.
When something does not go their way, instead of believing that they are incapable, they
believe that they are learning.
However, when people adopt a fixed mindset, they believe that human capabilities are carved
in stone.
They believe that you are either intelligent or not.
When something does not go their way, it means that they have failed and are incapable.
These are the two types of people in the world: those with a fixed mindset and those with
a growth mindset.
Which group do you belong to?
Fixed mindset or growth mindset?
The answer depends on how you were raised, your academic education, and your life experiences.
In the book Mindset: the New Psychology of Success, psychologist Carol Dweck [source:
https://arata.se/source-ub8t] explains the differences between the fixed mindset and
growth mindset in detail.
You are completely capable of adopting a growth mindset in order to become a more intelligent,
successful person with the ability to learn almost anything you want.
In the Arata Academy Summary today, we are going to look at the differences between the
fixed and growth mindsets, identify which group you belong to and show step by step
how you can adopt a successful mindset at once.
Your mindset molds your life.
Change is only going to be possible once you adopt a growth mentality.
Almost everything in your body is determined by genetics, take your eye colour, for example.
There is not a lot we can do to change the characteristics that you were born with.
But when it comes to intellectual characteristics, or bodily capabilities, it is a different
story.
Nowadays, there is pretty much a consensus amongst scientists that it is not enough to
be born with a certain genetic predisposition for a skill.
Your genes alone are not enough to solve complex mathematical problems, compete in sports at
a high level, or play the violin in a famous orchestra.
No one is born gifted with the skills of an outstanding professional.
All these achievements can only be reached after dedicating thousands of hours to learning,
practicing and growing.
The problem is that many people do not believe this.
And just the fact that they do not believe in this possibility of development stops them
from developing.
It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you believe that you cannot improve, there
is no way you ever will.
This is how your mindset determines whether you believe that you are capable of developing
a certain skill.
If you adopt a fixed mindset, then you believe you were born with a certain level of intelligence,
with a certain capability, with a certain excess or lack of talent to do things.
If someone with a fixed mentality believes that they were born with set characteristics,
then they will not be able to develop their skills.
Those with a growth mindset think differently.
They believe that they can develop any skill, as long as they push themselves and try their
hardest, in order to always go on improving.
To find out whether you have a fixed or growth mindset, observe how you react to development
opportunities.
Now that you understand the differences between those two types of mindset, which one do you
think is predominant in your life?
The best way to answer this is by observing how you react to development and learning
opportunities that come up in your life.
People with a fixed mindset tend to react to development opportunities by saying to
themselves phrases such as:
I already know everything that I need to I was not born with this gift
I am not good at this If this is too difficult, I will give up
I do not have time I already know that
These phrases come to mind because people with a fixed mindset believe in talent, they
really believe that people are naturally good or bad at certain skills and that cannot be
changed.
On the other hand, people with a growth mindset react to the same development opportunities
with phrases such as:
I like learning I can learn anything I want, as long as I
put the effort in If I get it wrong, I will try again
I love facing new challenges I will find a way
This does not mean that people with a growth mindset are able to do ANYTHING.
Of course there are predispositions for certain people to learn certain skills.
For example, someone who is one and a half meters tall and has asthma can put in as much
effort as they like, but they are never going to be able to play basketball like Michael
Jordan.
But the point is that people with a growth mindset do not keep comparing themselves to
others.
Comparison is not productive, it does not achieve anything.
Instead of always seeking the approval of others, what do people with a growth mindset
do?
They understand the constraints of the context of their life and compare themselves only
with themselves.
Even though that short person with asthma cannot play basketball better than Michael
Jordan, they will improve if they train a lot.
That way they will be better today than they were yesterday, and tomorrow they will be
even better than that.
This is comparing yourself to yourself.
This is a productive comparison.
People with a fixed mindset seek approval.
People with a growth mindset seek continuous improvement.
For someone who has a growth mindset, there are practically no limits to what they can
learn in their life.
When this person is faced with a problem, they embrace it and do their best to learn
how to become bigger than the problem.
They even end up liking problems, as they recognise that the more they solve, the better
the person they become.
The growth mentality allows you to understand that you will only ever improve with practice.
This applies to personal development, artistic or physical skills and also to your professional
career.
Only by practicing a lot, which means making a lot of mistakes, is this type of growth
possible.
What these people are seeking deep down is continuous growth.
They are always challenging themselves to learn new things, increase their intelligence
and acquire skills today that they did not have yesterday.
On the other hand, people with a fixed mindset are always seeking the approval of others.
They are more worried about their image.
That is why they only dare to do what they already know or the things they believe they
were born with a talent for.
That way, people with a fixed mentality are always trapped in what they call their comfort
zone, but really it should be called a stagnation zone.
If you never risk trying anything new, you are simply stagnant.
You never get anywhere in your career, you do not receive pay rises, you do not face
any challenges that make you feel alive.
People with a fixed mindset see failures as disasters.
People with a growth mindset see failures as opportunities.
One of the biggest differences between people with a fixed mindset and people with a growth
mindset is in the way in which they view failure.
For people with a fixed mindset, failure must be avoided at all costs.
They do not believe in learning from their mistakes or improving themselves.
This is why, a lot of the time, one single failure marks the end of this person’s attempt
to learn something new.
For example, imagine someone with a fixed mindset who decides to start a YouTube channel.
They record one, two or three videos and put them online.
The videos do not receive many views and the comments are mainly negative.
Due to the criticism, this fixed mindset person considers the experience a failure and gives
up.
They delete the videos and never try again.
Even if they were successful with the first few videos, they would probably give up if
one day one of the videos were heavily criticised.
One single failure is enough to eliminate all the previous success.
Now let’s take the same example and look at it from the point of view of someone with
a growth mindset.
In this case, the person sees the challenge of creating a YouTube channel as a process
of continuous improvement.
If the first few videos are criticised, they will take on board their mistake and try to
do better the next time.
Instead of getting annoyed with the negative comments, the growth mindset person is grateful
that people have taken time out of their day to offer feedback on their work.
They will use this feedback intelligently in order to develop better recording, editing
and publishing skills.
In summary: fixed mindset people see their failure as a true disaster.
Growth mindset people see failure as an opportunity to improve even more.
Fixed mindset people avoid difficulties.
Growth mindset people love their problems.
A consequence of seeing failure as a disaster is the constant attempt to avoid any kind
of difficulty at all costs.
There is such a thing as the belief in the power of natural talent.
This belief makes fixed mindset people think that they do not need to put in much effort.
It makes them think that if they need work at something, it means that they do not have
a natural talent for it.
However, the majority of achievements in life can only be obtained by putting in a lot of
effort.
In Episode 217 of the Hello!
Seiiti Arata series [https://arata.se/hello217], we spoke about the Ten Thousand Hours Rule.
The rule comes from studies which proved that people with outstanding skills in things such
as playing the violin, chess or basketball trained for around ten thousand hours over
many years to reach that level of skill.
In other words, talent is overrated.
Carol Dweck used the example of Michael Jordan.
Even though today he is considered one of the best basketball players of all time, Jordan
was not the best at the start of his career.
He was not the biggest team’s first option and he only won his first NBA title after
seven years of playing.
Other players were just as talented as Jordan, but he trained more and adopted a stronger
growth mentality than the others.
Throughout his career, he trained his weak points just as much as his strong ones for
thousands of hours.
The Ten Thousand Hours Rule is the perfect example of how the growth mindset works.
Instead of avoiding difficult situations, people with a growth mindset thrive off challenges.
Most of the time, the more difficult they find them, the stronger they become in order
to keep on improving.
Your mindset was defined according to your upbringing, education and life experiences.
But it is not set in stone.
Your mindset was formed according to how your family brought you up, the education you had
in school and your life experiences.
All babies are born with a growth mindset.
They want to learn and improve as much as possible every day.
But how they are raised by their parents has a determinate role in whether the child will
maintain their growth mindset for the rest of their life, or whether they will adopt
a fixed mindset.
In general, parents with a growth mindset raise children with a growth mindset.
And parents with a fixed mindset raise children with a fixed mindset.
Parents with a growth mindset encourage their children to always continue learning.
Instead of praising intelligence, talent, or other fixed characteristics, they praise
the effort that their children make to complete things.
However, parents with a fixed mindset are always judging their children’s final results.
They always categorise what their children do into right and wrong, good or bad, pretty
or ugly.
They do not praise the effort their child makes to do something, but the natural talent
they portray for certain skills.
This same dynamic repeats itself when children start school.
Teachers with a growth mindset stimulate their students to work hard, reminding them that
they are capable of learning anything if they put in enough effort.
While fixed mindset teachers separate the children into good students and bad students,
believing that the bad student will find it difficult to become a good one.
Lastly, your own life and work experiences help form your mindset.
Carol Dweck uses the legendary businessman Jack Welch as an example, who always spoke
to General Electric employees to give and receive feedback.
If you have always encountered stories or examples of growth and of achievement through
effort, then this will have an impact on your growth mindset.
However, if you have always experienced things that led you to believe in the predominance
of natural talent, you are likely to have a fixed mindset.
The good news is that, regardless of your upbringing, education or experiences, it is
always possible to change your outlook and adopt a growth mindset.
People with a growth mindset have a universe of possibilities in front of them.
These opportunities are available to you right now.
Even if you have been educated by fixed minded parents and teachers, you are able to change
and adopt a growth mindset, whenever you like.
What is the best way to achieve this change in mindset?
You can view the change process itself as your first experience of using the growth
mindset.
It is like a meta-learning process: you are learning to adopt a growth mindset using the
growth mindset.
This means being able to accept that your mindset is not going to change overnight.
If you have a fixed mindset, it was formed over years of upbringing, education and experience.
So making the change takes time and persistence, and you will certainly make some mistakes
along the way.
Remember to make productive comparisons, that is, you should only compare your mindset today
with the one you had yesterday.
Your brain can be trained just like a muscle can.
The more you train the growth mindset, the stronger it gets.
For example, let’s imagine that you are studying a foreign language and even after
hours of studying you are still forgetting keywords from the vocabulary you learned.
The initial reaction for someone with a fixed mentality is to think: I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN
really bad at learning languages!
For those who are in the process of changing their mindset would observe this reaction,
realise that this is what someone with a fixed mindset would think and in the same moment
interpret the forgetting in a different way, thinking: oh, my study strategy is not good.
I am going to use a different strategy since this one does not work.
A good way of training is to copy the way in which growth mentality people act.
Always be open to learning.
Believe that effort is far more important than talent.
Adopt the idea of continuous improvement.
View failures as opportunities for development and actively seek new challenges, expanding
your comfort zone.
This is not an easy task and it will require a lot from you for a good amount of time.
But every time you train, your brain will adapt a little more.
Until this new way of thinking will be something natural for you and your standard mode will
finally be the growth mentality.
Fixed-minded people cannot develop as much as they could before, because they place too
much value on the idea of natural talent, and because they are afraid of failure.
On the other hand, people with a growth mindset believe that it is possible to do just about
anything with hard work and persistence.
Even if you have been educated with a fixed mindset, it is still possible to change your
way of thinking and adopt the growth mindset.
To do this, you need to develop your own intelligence and focus only on being a little better today
than you were yesterday.
In the Intelligence Arata Academy course, you have access to a step-by-step method to
develop your brain and learn reading, study and memorization techniques.
You can learn more about the training right now by accessing the link https://arata.se/intelligence