My reflections on "Mindset"

After hearing a lot about "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" by Carol S. Dweck and participating in an intriguing #educoach, I had to read it for myself.  I majored in psychology in college, so books like this always catch my eye.

There is no way that I can summarize the book and do it the justice that Justin Tarte did in this blog post, so I will let him do his thing.

I did want to take time to reflect on what I gained from the book, please share what you thought!

3 reflections:

#1: A little bit of growth and a lotta bit of fixed: I would call myself a person of the growth mindset, but after reading this book, I can tell that I struggle to remove myself from the fixed mindset most of the time.  Fear of failure grips me, and I'm not sure why.  My parents were always that parents that were proud of me if I did my best no matter the grade on my report card.  I preach to my students EVERY day the importance of "failing successfully".  However, many times, I won't bet if there is a possibility that I won't win.  Even writing this post makes my stomach turn to think of all the times I could have done more, pushed harder, went further, but I was scared of not making it.  As I enter into my new role as assistant principal, I am glad that I have exposed this about myself.

#2: Fixed mindsets cannot be changed externally: I need to stop trying to "fix" my fixed minded students, friends, and family members.  There is nothing I can do to change their mind.  Only they can decide to change from the fixed mindset to the growth mindset.

#3: Understanding the presence of the fixed mindset helps: I had several discussions with people that the book did not teach how to un-coach the fixed mindset out of someone.  Looking at point #2, that is probably easy to infer.  However, I did feel that after reading the book I was able to pinpoint some areas where I have a fixed mindset which will help me move toward the growth mindset in the future.  Sometimes ignorance is bliss, but not in the case of the fixed mindset.  It helped me to know that there are just some people that ain't going to budge.  To me, understanding the presence of the fixed mindset is like naming someone's personality type: you cannot change it, but you can learn how to approach it!

I encourage you to check it out!