Mindset : The New Psychology of Success pdfdrive com

can address every criticism.
My student reminded me of the time she had sent her thesis research to the top
journal in our field. When the reviews came back, she was devastated. She had
been judged—the work was flawed and, by extension, so was she. Time passed,
but she couldn’t bring herself to go near the reviews again or work on the paper.
Then  I  told  her  to  change  her  mindset.  “Look,”  I  said,  “it’s  not  about  you.
That’s  their  job.  Their  job  is  to  find  every  possible  flaw.  Your  job  is  to  learn
from  the  critique  and  make  your  paper  even  better.”  Within  hours  she  was
revising  her  paper,  which  was  warmly  accepted.  She  tells  me:  “I  never  felt
judged again. Never. Every time I get that critique, I tell myself, ‘Oh, that’s their
job,’ and I get to work immediately on my job.”
But change is also hard.
When people hold on to a fixed mindset, it’s often for a reason. At some point
in their lives it served a good purpose for them. It told them who they were or
who they wanted to be (a smart, talented child) and it told them how to be that
(perform well). In this way, it provided a formula for self-esteem and a path to
love and respect from others.
The idea that they are worthy and will be loved is crucial for children, and—if
a child is unsure about being valued or loved—the fixed mindset appears to offer
a simple, straightforward route to this.
Psychologists Karen Horney and Carl Rogers, working in the mid-1900s, both
proposed theories of children’s emotional development. They believed that when
young  children  feel  insecure  about  being  accepted  by  their  parents,  they
experience great anxiety. They feel lost and alone in a complicated world. Since
they’re  only  a  few  years  old,  they  can’t  simply  reject  their  parents  and  say,  “I
think  I’ll  go  it  alone.”  They  have  to  find  a  way  to  feel  safe  and  to  win  their
parents over.
Both  Horney  and  Rogers  proposed  that  children  do  this  by  creating  or
imagining  other  “selves,”  ones  that  their  parents  might  like  better.  These  new
selves  are  what  they  think  the  parents  are  looking  for  and  what  may  win  them
the parents’ acceptance.
Often,  these  steps  are  good  adjustments  to  the  family  situation  at  the  time,
bringing the child some security and hope.

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The  problem  is  that  this  new  self—this  all-competent,  strong,  good  self  that
they  now  try  to  be—is  likely  to  be  a  fixed-mindset  self.  Over  time,  the  fixed
traits  may  come  to  be  the  person’s  sense  of  who  they  are,  and  validating  these
traits may come to be the main source of their self-esteem.
Mindset change asks people to give this up. As you can imagine, it’s not easy
to just let go of something that has felt like your “self” for many years and that
has given you your route to self-esteem. And it’s especially not easy to replace it
with a mindset that tells you to embrace all the things that have felt threatening:
challenge, struggle, criticism, setbacks.
When  I  was  exchanging  my  fixed  mindset  for  a  growth  one,  I  was  acutely
aware  of  how  unsettled  I  felt.  For  example,  I’ve  told  you  how  as  a  fixed
mindsetter, I kept track each day of all my successes. At the end of a good day, I
could  look  at  the  results  (the  high  numbers  on  my  intelligence  “counter,”  my
personality “counter,” and so on) and feel good about myself. But as I adopted a
growth mindset and stopped keeping track, some nights I would still check my
mental counters and find them at zero. It made me insecure not to be able to tote
up my victories.
Even worse, since I was taking more risks, I might look back over the day and
see all the mistakes and setbacks. And feel miserable.
What’s more, it’s not as though the fixed mindset wants to leave gracefully. If
the fixed mindset has been controlling your internal monologue, it can say some
pretty strong things to you when it sees those counters at zero: “You’re nothing.”
It  can  make  you  want  to  rush  right  out  and  rack  up  some  high  numbers.  The
fixed mindset once offered you refuge from that very feeling, and it offers it to
you again.
Don’t take it.
Then there’s the concern that you won’t be yourself anymore. It may feel as
though the fixed mindset gave you your ambition, your edge, your individuality.
Maybe you fear you’ll become a bland cog in the wheel just like everyone else.
Ordinary.
But  opening  yourself  up  to  growth  makes  you  more  yourself,  not  less.  The
growth-oriented  scientists,  artists,  athletes,  and  CEOs  we’ve  looked  at  were  far
from humanoids going through the motions. They were people in the full flower
of their individuality and potency.

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OPENING YOURSELF UP TO GROWTH
The rest of the book is pretty much about you. First are some mindset exercises
in  which  I  ask  you  to  venture  with  me  into  a  series  of  dilemmas.  In  each  case,
you’ll first see the fixed-mindset reactions, and then work through to a growth-
mindset solution.