Mindset : The New Psychology of Success pdfdrive com

class. Don’t share your writing with others. It’s not worth the risk. Your dream
could be destroyed. Protect it.
Now  it  says:  Go  for  it.  Make  it  happen.  Develop  your  skills.  Pursue  your
dream.
And here’s Jason, the athlete:
As  a  student  athlete  at  Columbia  I  had  exclusively  the  fixed
mindset.  Winning  was  everything  and  learning  did  not  enter  the
picture. However, after listening to your lectures, I realized that this
is  not  a  good  mindset.  I’ve  been  working  on  learning  while  I
compete,  under  the  realization  that  if  I  can  continually  improve,
even in matches, I will become a much better athlete.

---

Jason’s  internal  monologue  used  to  be:  Win.  Win.  You  have  to  win.  Prove
yourself. Everything depends on it.
Now it’s: Observe. Learn. Improve. Become a better athlete.
And finally, here’s Tony, the recovering genius:
In high school  I was  able to get  top grades  with minimal studying
and sleeping. I came to believe that it would always be so because I
was  naturally  gifted  with  a  superior  understanding  and  memory.
However, after about a year of sleep deprivation my understanding
and memory began to not be so superior anymore. When my natural
talents, which I had come to depend on almost entirely for my self-
esteem (as opposed to my ability to focus, my determination or my
ability to work hard), came into question, I went through a personal
crisis  that  lasted  until  a  few  weeks  ago  when  you  discussed  the
different mindsets in class. Understanding that a lot of my problems
were  the  result  of  my  preoccupation  with  proving  myself  to  be
“smart”  and  avoiding  failures  has  really  helped  me  get  out  of  the
self-destructive pattern I was living in.
Tony’s  internal  monologue  went  from:  I’m  naturally  gifted.  I  don’t  need  to
study. I don’t need to sleep. I’m superior.
To: Uh-oh, I’m losing it. I can’t understand things, I can’t remember things.
What am I now?
To:  Don’t  worry  so  much  about  being  smart.  Don’t  worry  so  much  about
avoiding  failures.  That  becomes  self-destructive.  Let’s  start  to  study  and  sleep
and get on with life.
Of course, these people will have setbacks and disappointments, and sticking
to  the  growth  mindset  may  not  always  be  easy.  But  just  knowing  it  gave  them
another  way  to  be.  Instead  of  being  held  captive  by  some  intimidating  fantasy
about  the  Great  Writer,  the  Great  Athlete,  or  the  Great  Genius,  the  growth
mindset  gave  them  courage  to  embrace  their  own  goals  and  dreams.  And  more
important, it gave them a way to work toward making them real.
A MINDSET WORKSHOP

---

Adolescence,  as  we’ve  seen,  is  a  time  when  hordes  of  kids  turn  off  to  school.
You  can  almost  hear  the  stampede  as  they  try  to  get  as  far  from  learning  as
possible. This is a time when students are facing some of the biggest challenges
of  their  young  lives,  and  a  time  when  they  are  heavily  evaluating  themselves,
often  with  a  fixed  mindset.  It  is  precisely  the  kids  with  the  fixed  mindset  who
panic and run for cover, showing plummeting motivation and grades.
Over  the  past  few  years,  we’ve  developed  a  workshop  for  these  students.  It
teaches them the growth mindset and how to apply it to their schoolwork. Here
is part of what they’re told:
Many  people  think  of  the  brain  as  a  mystery.  They  don’t  know
much  about  intelligence  and  how  it  works.  When  they  do  think
about  what  intelligence  is,  many  people  believe  that  a  person  is
born  either  smart,  average,  or  dumb—and  stays  that  way  for  life.
But  new  research  shows  that  the  brain  is  more  like  a  muscle—it
changes and gets stronger when you use it. And scientists have been
able to show just how the brain grows and gets stronger when you
learn.
We  then  describe  how  the  brain  forms  new  connections  and  “grows”  when
people practice and learn new things.
When  you  learn  new  things,  these  tiny  connections  in  the  brain
actually  multiply  and  get  stronger.  The  more  that  you  challenge
your  mind  to  learn,  the  more  your  brain  cells  grow.  Then,  things
that you once found very hard or even impossible—like speaking a
foreign  language  or  doing  algebra—seem  to  become  easy.  The
result is a stronger, smarter brain.
We go on to point out that nobody laughs at babies and says how dumb they
are  because  they  can’t  talk.  They  just  haven’t  learned  yet.  We  show  students
pictures of how the density of brain connections changes during the first years of
life as babies pay attention, study their world, and learn how to do things.
Over  a  series  of  sessions,  through  activities  and  discussions,  students  are
taught study skills and shown how to apply the lessons of the growth mindset to
their studying and their schoolwork.

---

Students love learning about the brain, and the discussions are very lively. But
even  more  rewarding  are  the  comments  students  make  about  themselves.  Let’s
revisit Jimmy, the hard-core turned-off student from chapter 3. In our very first
workshop, we were amazed to hear him say with tears in his eyes: “You mean I
don’t have to be dumb?”
You  may  think  these  students  are  turned  off,  but  I  saw  that  they  never  stop
caring. Nobody gets used to feeling dumb. Our workshop told Jimmy, “You’re
in charge of your mind. You can help it grow by using it in the right way.” And
as the workshop progressed, here is what Jimmy’s teacher said about him:
Jimmy, who never puts in any extra effort and often doesn’t turn in
homework  on  time,  actually  stayed  up  late  working  for  hours  to
finish  an  assignment  early  so  I  could  review  it  and  give  him  a
chance to revise it. He earned a B+ on the assignment (he had been
getting C’s and lower).
Incidentally, teachers weren’t just trying to be nice to us by telling us what we
wanted  to  hear.  The  teachers  didn’t  know  who  was  in  our  growth-mindset
workshop. This was because we had another workshop too. This workshop met
just  as  many  times,  and  taught  them  even  more  study  skills.  And  students  got
just as much personal attention from supportive tutors. But they didn’t learn the
growth mindset and how to apply it.
Teachers didn’t know which of their students went to which of the workshops,
but they still singled out Jimmy and many of the students in the growth-mindset
workshop to tell us that they’d seen real changes in their motivation to learn and
improve.
Lately I have noticed that some students have a greater appreciation
for  improvement….R.  was  performing  below  standards….He  has
learned  to  appreciate  the  improvement  from  his  grades  of  52,  46,
and  49  to  his  grades  of  67  and  71….He  valued  his  growth  in
learning Mathematics.
M.  was  far  below  grade  level.  During  the  past  several  weeks,  she
has  voluntarily  asked  for  extra  help  from  me  during  her  lunch
period in order to improve her test-taking performance. Her grades

---

drastically improved from failing to an 84 on the most recent exam.
Positive  changes  in  motivation  and  behavior  are  noticeable  in  K.
and J. They have begun to work hard on a consistent basis.
Several  students  have  voluntarily  participated  in  peer  tutoring
sessions during their lunch periods or after school. Students such as
N. and S. were passing when they requested the extra help and were
motivated by the prospect of sheer improvement.
We  were  eager  to  see  whether  the  workshop  affected  students’  grades,  so,
with  their  permission,  we  looked  at  students’  final  marks  at  the  end  of  the
semester.  We  looked  especially  at  their  math  grades,  since  these  reflected  real
learning of challenging new concepts.
Before  the  workshops,  students’  math  grades  had  been  suffering  badly.  But
afterward, lo and behold, students who’d been in the growth-mindset workshop
showed  a  jump  in  their  grades.  They  were  now  clearly  doing  better  than  the
students who’d been in the other workshop.
The  growth-mindset  workshop—just  eight  sessions  long—had  a  real  impact.
This one adjustment of students’ beliefs seemed to unleash their brain power and
inspire  them  to  work  and  achieve.  Of  course,  they  were  in  a  school  where  the
teachers were responsive to their outpouring of motivation, and were willing to
put in the extra work to help them learn. Even so, these findings show the power
of changing mindsets.
The  students  in  the  other  workshop  did  not  improve.  Despite  their  eight
sessions of training in study skills and other good things, they showed no gains.
Because  they  were  not  taught  to  think  differently  about  their  minds,  they  were
not motivated to put the skills into practice.
The mindset workshop put students in charge of their brains. Freed from the
vise of the fixed mindset, Jimmy and others like him could now use their minds
more freely and fully.
BRAINOLOGY
The problem with the workshop was that it required a big staff to deliver it. This

---

wouldn’t  be  feasible  on  a  large  scale.  Plus,  the  teachers  weren’t  directly
involved. They could be a big factor in helping to sustain the students’ gains. So
we  decided  to  put  our  workshop  on  interactive  computer  modules  and  have
teachers guide their classes through the modules.
With the advice of educational experts, media experts, and brain experts, we
developed the “Brainology”™ program. It presents animated figures, Chris and
Dahlia—seventh  graders  who  are  cool  but  are  having  problems  with  their
schoolwork.  Dahlia  is  having  trouble  with  Spanish,  and  Chris  with  math.  They
visit the lab of Dr. Cerebrus, a slightly mad brain scientist, who teaches them all
about  the  brain  and  the  care  and  feeding  of  it.  He  teaches  them  what  to  do  for
maximum  performance  from  the  brain  (like  sleeping  enough,  eating  the  right
things,  and  using  good  study  strategies)  and  he  teaches  them  how  the  brain
grows  as  they  learn.  The  program,  all  along,  shows  students  how  Chris  and
Dahlia  apply  these  lessons  to  their  schoolwork.  The  interactive  portions  allow
students to do brain experiments, see videos of real students with their problems
and  study  strategies,  recommend  study  plans  for  Chris  and  Dahlia,  and  keep  a
journal of their own problems and study plans.
Here are some of the seventh graders writing about how this program changed
them:
After  Brainology,  I  now  have  a  new  look  at  things.  Now,  my
attitude  towards  the  subjects  I  have  trouble  in  [is]  I  try  harder  to
study  and  master  the  skills….I  have  been  using  my  time  more
wisely,  studying  every  day  and  reviewing  the  notes  that  I  took  on
that  day.  I  am  really  glad  that  I  joined  this  program  because  it
increased my intelligence about the brain.
I  did  change  my  mind  about  how  the  brain  works  and  i  do  things
differently.  i  will  try  harder  because  i  know  that  the  more  you  try
the more your brain works.
ALL i can say is that Brainology changed my grades. Bon Voyage!
The  Brainology  program  kind  of  made  me  change  the  way  i  work
and  study  and  practice  for  school  work  now  that  i  know  how  my
brain works and what happens when i learn.

---

Thank  you  for  making  us  study  more  and  helping  us  build  up  our
brain!  I  actually  picture  my  neurons  growing  bigger  as  they  make
more connections.
Teachers  told  us  how  formerly  turned-off  students  were  now  talking  the
Brainology talk. For example, they were taught that when they studied well and
learned something, they transferred it from temporary storage (working memory)
to more permanent storage (long-term memory). Now they were saying to each
other: “I’ll have to put that into my long-term memory.” “Sorry, that stuff is not
in my long-term memory.” “I guess I was only using my working memory.”
Teachers said that students were also offering to practice, study, take notes, or
pay attention more to make sure that neural connections would be made. As one
student said:
“Yes the [B]rainology program helped a lot….Every time I thought about not
doing work I remembered that my neurons could grow if I did do the work.”
The teachers also changed. Not only did they say great things about how their
students benefited, they also said great things about the insights they themselves
had gained. In particular, they said Brainology was essential for understanding:
“That all students can learn, even the ones who struggle with math and with
self-control.”
“That I have to be more patient because learning takes a great deal of time and
practice.”
“How  the  brain  works….Each  learner  learns  differently.  Brainology  assisted
me in teaching for various learning styles.”
Our workshop went to children in twenty schools. Some children admitted to
being skeptical at first: “i used to think it was just free time and a good cartoon
but  i  started  listening  to  it  and  i  started  doing  what  they  told  me  to  do.”  In  the
end, almost all children reported meaningful benefits.
MORE ABOUT CHANGE
Is change easy or hard? So far it sounds easy. Simply learning about the growth
mindset can sometimes mobilize people for meeting challenges and persevering.
The other day one of my former grad students told me a story. But first some
background. In my field, when you submit a research paper for publication, that

---

paper  often  represents  years  of  work.  Some  months  later  you  receive  your
reviews: ten or so pages of criticism—single-spaced. If the editor still thinks the
paper has potential, you will be invited to revise it and resubmit it provided you