Hey everyone Daniel here from Next Level life.
You know I've always found it interesting how some people seem to succeed despite very
difficult circumstances and some people don't even when they seem to have everything going
for them from an early age.
There's been a lot of theories thrown around as to why that is but I've never really felt
satisfied with the answers.
Probably because there is no simple answer.
So what really makes people successful?
If it's not their upbringing and it's not their education or their economic background
then what is it?
Well like I said this is not going to be a simple singular answer that this one video
can cover because there are a lot of factors that go into it.
But I believe that one of the big factors behind why people either succeed or don't
succeed is their mindset.
In essence your attitude determines your altitude.
And with that in mind today I'm going to be covering Carol dweck's theory on growth vs
fixed mindsets.
I'm going to be talking about what they are, how they're different, as well as how much
of a difference having a growth mindset can have on your life.
I'm also going to be talking about how to change to a growth mindset if you're currently
in a fixed mindset.
Let's get started.
So the basic difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset is that a fixed mindset
assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative abilities are static.
Good or bad, they’re all seen as just a given.
You either got it or you don’t, so basically we can't change in any meaningful way, and
success is just the affirmation of that inherent intelligence.
It's an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; which
in this case is success or failure.
Did you answer the question right or were you wrong?
That’s all that matters, and often times those with fixed mindsets will psychologically
sort of tune out the correct answers if they learn that they had initially answered incorrectly.
So, those with fixed mindsets strive for success and above all avoid failure at all costs as
a way of maintaining that sense of being inherently smart or skilled.
Whereas someone with a growth mindset actually thrives on challenges and sees failure not
as evidence that you are unintelligent but rather as a springboard for growth and stretching
your existing abilities to improve on them.
These two mindsets manifest from a very early age and they lead to a great deal of our behaviors,
our relationships with success and failure both personally and professionally, and ultimately
our capacity for happiness.
There's a great picture that I found that really illustrates the differences between
these two mindsets and I'll put it up on the screen for you now.
As you can see a fixed mindset leads to a desire to look smart and as a result someone
with it tends to avoid challenges and give up easily when they run into obstacles.
Effort is seen as fruitless or worse and when someone with a fixed mindset receives constructive
criticism they tend to ignore that useful negative feedback.
They also tend to feel threatened by the success of others and as a result of this deterministic
view of the world they may Plateau early in life and fail to achieve their full potential.
A growth mindset on the other hand leads to a desire to learn and therefore people with
growth mindsets tend to embrace challenges and persist in the face of setbacks and other
obstacles.
They see effort as the path to get to Mastery and they learn from criticism when they receive
it.
And as a result of this they tend to find lessons and inspiration in the success of
others and reach even higher levels of achievement giving them a greater sense of free will.
Because they determine their destiny.
To illustrate the differences between the two mindsets further consider this example:
During Dweck’s research she conducted a study with four year olds.
Because yes as it turns out the mindsets are routed in us that young.
In the study dweck and her colleagues gave a classroom of four-year-old's a jigsaw puzzle
and a very easy one at that and they all finished it of course, but after they finished it they
were offered a choice: they could either redo the easy jigsaw puzzle that they just did
or try a new harder one.
Those with fixed mindsets stayed on the safe side and chose the easier puzzle that would
affirm their already existing abilities.
The kids we're essentially telling the researchers that their belief was that smart kids don't
make mistakes.
Whereas those with growth mindsets thought it was an odd choice to begin with because
why would anyone want to do the same puzzle over and over again if they aren't learning
anything?
In the end they chose to tackle the harder puzzle.
In other words the fixed mindset kids wanted to make sure that they succeeded in order
to seem smart, whereas the growth mindset kids wanted to stretch themselves, because
their definition of success was about becoming smarter.
Now that's a pretty small example I mean we're talking about jigsaw puzzles for goodness
sakes.
But think about how that view of the world would affect your life if what was revealed
in that example carried over.
How would your career go differently if you only ever tried to do things you already knew
you could do to appear smart rather than actually doing things that challenged yourself in order
to become smarter?
You may actually end up getting recognized with a fixed mindset early on because everything
you do seems to turn to gold right?
You're only doing things you know you can already achieve.
But what happens when you get that promotion and suddenly you're faced with challenges
that you don't already know how to overcome?
What do you do then?
You're not going to be asking questions because with that fixed view of the world you would
think it makes you seem unintelligent and remember according to this world view smart
people don't make mistakes.
And effort is fruitless or worse because again, we can’t change in any meaningful ways.
Believe it or not though it actually goes further than that.
Let's take a look at our relationships.
In her studies dweck found that people with fixed mindsets believe that their ideal mate
would be one that put them on a pedestal and made them feel like they were perfect.
Whereas those with growth mindsets prefer to partner would recognize their faults and
lovingly help them improve.
They wanted someone who would encourage them to learn new things and become a better person.
It was also found that people with fixed mindsets would feel threatened and maybe even hostile
after talking about even minor discrepancies and how their partner and they saw their relationship.
Which leads me to believe that having a fixed mindset would probably actually lead to a
lot more stressful of a life and we know the health hazards that come along with having
too much stress in our lives.
But perhaps the most destructive of all Dweck’s findings, at least when it comes to relationships,
is the belief that if the relationship requires work to function then the people with fixed
mindsets are much more likely to believe that something is terribly wrong.
And any discrepancy of opinions or preferences is a result of character flaws on behalf of
one's partner.
Wow!
I don't even think I have to go into how that view could ruin many a relationship.
So if you have a fixed mindset and want to develop a growth mindset how do you do it?
Well it's one of those easy to say but much harder to do things and it all starts with
recognizing your fixed mindset tendencies and becoming conscious of what makes you fall
into viewing the world purely through that binary trap of success and failure.
And whenever that happens remind yourself that, that is what's happening and that you
getting something wrong or not being able to accomplish something right off the bat
is not a sign of failure it's just another learning experience.
Remember the whole idea behind a growth mindset is that you're always trying to improve and
learn and challenges and obstacles are what give you the chance to do that.
There's one quote that I always used to remind myself that facing these challenges we're
good thing when I was trying to change to a growth mindset.
It was a quote from an old Michael Jordan commercial and it went like this "I’ve failed
over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed."
So that's the fixed and growth mindsets as studied by Carol dweck.
If you liked this video or learned something be sure to like And subscribe and If you're
new to the channel you can also check out my playlists for more content, I'll leave
those in the description below.
But that'll do it for me so until next time thanks for watching and have a great day.