WHAT IS A GROWTH MINDSET AND HOW TO SPREAD IT

Why do some people give up when faced with challenges, while others look for solutions until they succeed? Carol Dweck, an American psychologist, began to study this phenomenon among school-age children in the 1980s and, as a result of many years of experimentation, discovered that the difference lies in attitude, not innate abilities.

Carol Dweck described her team's discoveries in the book "Mindset" published in 2007 - a publication that quickly gained popularity and, above all, the hearts of educators and parents around the world. Not without reason.

In this article, you will find information about the extremely valuable concept of a growth mindset, as well as learn how to instill a growth mindset in yourself or others.

Effort or talent: what is more important?

GROWTH MINDSET AND FIXED MINDSET

Development-oriented people believe that we can develop competencies throughout our lives, and our potential is unknown. The essence of a growth mindset is the belief that innate abilities are not crucial and that with effort, anyone can achieve a high level of skills.

On the other hand, people with a fixed mindset believe that they were born with a certain level of intelligence or ability that cannot be changed regardless of the effort made. A fixed mindset is associated with the belief that we are either born with talent or we are not.

Carol Dweck found that people with a growth mindset achieve more than people with a fixed mindset, even in the absence of differences in initial skill level or IQ (intelligence quotient).

Attitude may be more important than talent, and the competencies we associate with successful people - such as willingness to work hard, high motivation, and concentration - are by-products of a growth mindset.

Attitude translates naturally into the approach to challenges, as illustrated in the graphic below.

People with a growth mindset treat the challenges they face as an opportunity to develop competencies. Such people know that it takes a lot of effort to overcome difficulties or acquire a new skill - this is natural because few of us are born with talent. People with a growth mindset are grateful for feedback because honest feedback helps them develop or change their strategy to a more effective one.

On the other hand, people with a fixed mindset often treat challenges as threats and avoid them. Such people are afraid that if they do not solve the problem on the first attempt, they will embarrass themselves and reveal their lack of innate talent.

When faced with difficulties, they often give up because they do not believe that their efforts will make a difference. Criticism only reinforces their belief that they are not suitable for a given field and makes them withdraw even more.

Will you make another try?

Attitude affects more than just the outcome of the situation we are facing at a given moment. People with a fixed mindset, when they fail or receive negative feedback, often refuse to try again.

In turn, growth-minded people will often try again when faced with failure, because they know that satisfactory results do not appear immediately, but are the result of long efforts (and mistakes from which valuable lessons can be learned).

A development mindset after many steps consisting of small failures and successes can lead to a significant increase in competence in a given field.

The basic difference between growth and a fixed mindset is aptly illustrated by a quote from Carol Dweck's book:

Can anyone achieve anything?

A growth mindset is a powerful concept, but it's not a magic formula. Not everyone will become an outstanding scientist, athlete, or artist. Genes determine our initial level of intelligence and abilities. Some achievements simply come easier to people who have drawn lucky cards, which causes frustration for others. However, it is worth knowing that each of us can be better than ourselves from yesterday or a year ago. This knowledge and effort can take development-oriented people further than lucky people who have talent but are focused on stability. The growth mindset involves believing that our full potential is unknown.

"Growth-minded people feel wise when they study. Fixed-minded people feel wise when they make no mistakes."

The power of compound interest

Let's turn to mathematics to illustrate the effect of regular effort in any field. The graphic below comes from the book "Atomic Habits" (which I highly recommend, by the way). The author, James Clear, created a very simple but thought-provoking chart.

If we improve in a selected area by 1% every day, after a year we will be over 37 times better at it. It also works the other way around - knowledge or skills that we do not cultivate degrade over time.

Believe in the neuroplasticity of the brain

Neuroscience proves that a growth mindset can lead to extraordinary results. Until the 1970s, it was not obvious that as adults we could develop our brains, create new neural connections in them, and strengthen existing ones. It was believed that such changes only occur in children and only up to a certain age. Now we know that this is not true, and the brain is like a muscle that develops through exercise. Brain scans of humans and other animal species show that, regardless of age, the brain can reprogram itself with training, learning, and acquiring new skills. This is proof that we are not born with fixed abilities and that we can constantly improve our competencies.

There are no extremes

Is it possible to achieve a complete growth mindset? I don't think so, and each of us is somewhere on the spectrum between growth and a fixed mindset. Some are closer to the growth mindset, while others are closer to the fixed mindset.

Additionally, in some areas of life we are closer to a growth mindset, and in others to a fixed mindset. Perhaps you think that, for example, in garden care, you can constantly improve your competencies if you invest enough time and effort in this area and do not get discouraged by failures. At the same time, you may think that your cooking skills will always remain at the same low level, no matter how hard you try, because you simply don't have the talent for it.

How to develop a growth mindset in young people?

In this part, I will show you how to develop faith in the possibility of developing your competencies daily, based on tips developed by Carol Dweck and educators from around the world.

1. Appreciate the effort that brought results, or how to praise for good results

According to Carol Dweck's research, appreciating young people for the effort they put in brings better long-term benefits than praising the result. By assessing the process rather than its result, we avoid labeling. We don't tell them what they "are" based on one situation, but we describe what happened in a given case.

Before I learned about the concept of growth mindset, I thought it was worth appreciating others for their innate abilities and intelligence. I believe that it could only increase their self-esteem and encourage them to develop further. This doesn't have to be true though.

When a young person is told that he is smart and talented, it will be difficult for him to cope with a situation in which he does not immediately know the solution or the right answer. Why do I have trouble with this if I am talented? But am I not as smart as they tell me? Maybe then I won't keep trying because it will jeopardize my reputation.

How to praise to strengthen a growth mindset?

- appreciate effort and related competencies, such as discipline and concentration;

- show effort as something beneficial for the brain, which thrives on challenge and difficulty and stagnates when faced with tasks that are too simple.

Take a look at the following examples of typical praise and their growth mindset alternatives:

fixed mindset and growth mindset sentence

ATTENTION! Remember to praise and appreciate the real effort. If you find an exercise difficult, Carol Dweck suggests saying, "Oops, I guess that was too easy for you. Let's find a task that will make you think twice!”

A growth mindset is about loving challenges and understanding that it is through difficulties that our brains develop. Easy tasks that do not require any effort from us may strengthen our label as a "wise" person, but they will certainly not allow us to acquire new competencies, on the contrary - they will make us stand still.

2. Use the word "yet"

When someone makes a mistake, point out that failure is a natural path to growth. The inconspicuous word "yet" helps reinforce the belief that even if you are not yet at your desired level of knowledge or skills, you can get there in the future.

Instead of labeling young people with statements such as "Mathematics probably isn't your thing," say, "You don't know it yet." If you are a teacher, it is worth promoting the possibility of development not only at the verbal level but also, for example, by giving the opportunity to repeatedly improve the grade.

ATTENTION! If you are a parent and your child, despite making many attempts, still does not know how to solve the problem, your role as a parent is to support him in choosing a different, better strategy, because a young person cannot always cope with it on his own. It is worth working together to ensure that subsequent attempts are as well prepared as possible so that they do not lead to frustration and doubt in the ability to develop and make progress.

3. Be an example of a growth mindset (or at least try!)

If you promote a growth mindset among others, and you avoid challenges daily to avoid failure and ridicule, people will immediately sense a lack of authenticity and our project of introducing a growth mindset will fail.

It is worth showing people that we also make mistakes, but we treat them as an opportunity to improve. That sometimes it is not easy for us to accept criticism, but we try to perceive it as a valuable feedback. And that we also don't always have a growth mindset.

Let's show our struggles to prove that working on attitude is a long-term, even lifelong project.

You may be wondering why a growth mindset is so important.

I am convinced that if, as a young person, you believe in your ability to constantly improve your competencies, you will be less inclined to limit your career choices.

When a child at the age of 10 believes that he is not suitable for mathematics and stops developing in this field (taking the path of least resistance through school), many potential career paths will be closed to him. This belief may be the result of, among others: a few worse grades or a family belief that girls are not suitable for science or that a child from a low-income family should not even think about higher education.

A growth mindset is therefore a tool for equalizing opportunities.

The growth mindset concept also has its critics. The main criticism of Carol Dweck is that her research (and its very positive results) is difficult to replicate by researchers at other universities. It is worth taking a closer look at this topic because the evaluation of attitudes and their impact on achieved results is an extremely difficult field. I am sure that research on growth mindset will continue and over time we will have more and more knowledge about it.

What's next?

If you want to develop your knowledge of the growth mindset concept, I recommend you: