Growth Mindset

My wife is a public school teacher, she teaches students who have special needs. She teaches a lot of students with learning disabilities and one thing she focuses with her students on a concept called “Growth Mindset”.

What is Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset?

The concept is there are two mindsets in people in learning and life. Growth vs Fixed Mindset. Growth says, I don’t know right now. Where as fixed says I will never know. Fixed mindset says nothing will change, that I can’t, I won’t and I’ll never. Whereas Growth Mindset says: right now, I can’t, but I will. Even though I’m frustrated, I will keep trying.

What is the number one factor in success?

If you look across the dozens of highly successful people, they all took action. They pushed themselves and they changed the world. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk (Tesla, Solar City, Paypal) and others like JD Rockefeller, or Henry Ford.

If you read about Henry Ford and the Ford Motor company, Ford was born out of the experiments and side projects of an engineer. He “played” with gas engines, he had many successes and failures. But what is clear, it’s the act of trying, of pushing yourself and doing that is a better determining factor rather then intelligence alone.

How can I apply growth mindset to my career?

What areas do you lack or struggle in? Do you suck at or hate office politics? So do I, that’s why I’m reading Harvard Business review on politics. That’s why I tutor on the side, thats why I am learning Elixir. What are my gaps in my own knowledge? We, functional programming and distributed systems.

How can I apply growth mindset to my life?

It starts with an attitude or a world view change: I can, I am able, I’m going to keep trying. It’s just like practicing an instrument. You’re working at getting better. I applied growth mindset to the first 10 times I went skiing. Every time I fell down I laughed, cussed and got backup and gave it another try. Now, I can ski almost all day without falling over, I can do a mixture of blues and blacks. I push myself and if I fail, I don’t give up.

Written on April 18, 2016