We all go through ups and downs in our lives, but have you ever thought that we are in control of what we think, what take on, and what we portray to the world? We can take on the thoughts that move through our minds, or we can choose to let them just float through…
I know that from personal experience, I would take on everything I thought, which was mainly negative, not a good thing. And these would eventually become beliefs.
One of the most basic beliefs we carry about ourselves has to do with how we view our personality. A “fixed mindset” assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static and we can’t change them in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled.
Or, we can develop what is called a “growth mindset,” which thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities.
Out of these two mindsets, which we manifest from an early age, springs a great deal of our behavior, our relationship with success and failure in both professional and personal contexts, and ultimately our capacity for happiness.
The fixed mindset creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character — well, then you’d better prove that you have a healthy dose of them.
Every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will, I feel like a winner or a loser...
There is another mindset in which these traits are not simply a hand you are dealt with and must live with. In this mindset, the hand you are dealt is just the starting point for development.
This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way — in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments — everyone can change and grow through application and experience.
A mindset tells us what is going on around us. In the fixed mindset, that process is an internal monologue of constant judging and evaluation, using every piece of information as evidence either for or against such assessments as to whether you’re a good person, whether your partner is selfish, or whether you are better than the person next to you. In a growth mindset, the internal monologue is not one of judgment but one of an insatiable appetite for learning, constantly seeking out the kind of input that you can metabolize into learning and constructive action.
