Carol Dweck and the Growth Mindset

The concept of having a growth mindset is something that I’ve been aware of for a long time. It’s one of those concepts that generally accepted by the world as a positive thing and has turned into a bit of a buzzword in the personal development world. Because I had heard about it so much I thought I knew everything I needed to about the growth mindset and shied away from reading the book until it was recommended to me by one of my mentors.

For anyone unfamiliar with the book or what having a growth mindset is, Carol Dweck describes it in her book as, “people who believe that their success depends on time and effort. People with a growth mindset feel their skills and intelligence can be improved with effort and persistence. They embrace challenges, persist through obstacles, learn from criticism and seek out inspiration in others’ success.”

What’s funny is that in the first few pages of the book I realized that I had a fixed mindset toward learning about mindsets.  It became very clear that I had a lot to learn from her.

You can tell from the definition how universally applicable this concept is which is what makes the book so powerful. She goes into great detail about how this applies to all different areas of life including parenting, business, school, and relationships. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed learning about growth mindsets in parenting given that I’m not a parent myself. It was fascinating to see how impactful the words you use toward your children can be and that there’s a way to take advantage of that to help raise more curious and resilient human beings.

I really enjoyed the way the book was written as she goes into great detail about the overall concept and then provides real-life examples of people who have used it successfully and those that haven’t.  Seeing the dangers of having a fixed mindset play out in the Enron scandal as well as how great leaders like Jack Welsch leveraged their growth mindset that lead to great success makes the points resonate deeply.

It was such a great book to read at this point in my life as I’m beginning my career as an entrepreneur. My days are filled almost exclusively with things that I’ve never done before and inevitably suck at. I’ve noticed myself subconsciously doing more things that I’ve told myself I'm not good at (like singing and juggling) just to try them out and get a little bit better.

The book also inspired me to confront one of my fears in recording myself talking. As I’m building out my Instagram presence for the new business, I’ve been told by many people that showing my face and telling my story is the best way to build a loyal following. Recording myself and listening to myself talking is one of my least favorite things to do so I was dreading it a lot leading up to the first video I did two weeks ago. I did a bunch of takes and felt myself growing frustrated, resigning myself to the belief that I just simply wasn’t good at speaking into the camera.

I had begun to read the book two days prior and it was sitting on my desk – when I took a break after a particularly brutal recording, I glanced over and saw it out of the corner of my eye. It woke me up to the fact that I was falling victim to my fixed mindset and that if I changed the way I was viewing the recording I might have more success. I began to think about how I’m not inherently bad at talking into the camera, it’s that I haven’t done it much before so I’m not comfortable doing it yet. I started seeing the bad recordings as a positive thing where I was getting them out of my system to make room for the better ones that were going to come later.

If you follow me on Instagram you would have seen the videos and know that it didn’t turn out perfect but I promise you it was infinitely better than the first recording.  I’ve chosen to embrace the growth mindset and commit to practicing recording myself daily – I can’t eat dinner until I’ve done at least one selfie recording.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is trying something new in their life or wants to have a better understanding of what effect mindset has on your life. If you’re anything like me it’ll expose all of your limiting beliefs and help you to take one step closer toward being a better version of yourself!