What is your mindset? Growth and Fixed mindsets

Is the concept of a growth mindset older than we think?

I have my bookshelf right above my desk. Every time my mind wanders off, or I am looking around for inspiration, I am greeted by some of my favorite authors. It's a great way to remind yourself to set your eyes on the prize and keep you concentrated.

Front and center of my shelf is a classic by Wayne Dyer called Your Erroneous Zones. It was published back in 1976 and made a splash as soon as it hit the shelves, selling around 35 million copies.

Your Erroneous Zones touches on a concept that has become extremely prevalent recently - the idea of fixed vs. growth mindset. A fixed mindset tells us that our traits are our given statistics that we can’t change. Dyer references it when talking about how our past can often influence how we feel about ourselves in the future. If you have been shy in the past, perhaps you think of yourself as shy. The fixed mindset says “I am shy”.

This is extremely common, and often manifests as “I can’t do X, because I am Y”:

I can’t go for that manager position, because I am more of a details guy.

I can’t run a marathon, because I am not a healthy person.

I can’t can’t take a drawing class, because I am not talented when it comes to art.

Dyer emphasizes that the past isn’t the present. We can change how we think about ourselves, resulting in a positive life changes. It was one of my favorite takeaways from the book. The idea of this “growth mindset” was later examined by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck’s groundbreaking work in Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

A growth mindset challenges the fixed mindset that can be so easy to fall into. Carol Dweck’s research shows that the view your adopt of yourself can profoundly influence whether you become the person you want to be.

There is a subtle difference in the way of thinking. By having your views on yourself carved in stone with a fixed mindset, you are constantly having to prove that any positive thing about you is true, and getting in an identity crisis every time you fail. A growth mindset takes the onus off “who you are” and fuels a passion for learning and self-evaluation. It's about “what you can do”.

It can sound like a cheesy phrase, but I’m a big supporter of the axiom “just believe you can”. Say you can. There is a reason that this phrase is parroted across hundreds of self-help gurus. When I look up at my library of spirituality, coaching, and improvement, I can see Carol Dweck’s theory represented in a number of titles - even ones published before her.

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success has the scientific underpinnings to prove that with a fixed mindset, you limit yourself and force your dreams to fit into your incorrect internal monologue. But when you have a growth mindset, that internal monologue becomes a coach, with a voracious appetite for growth.

Give Dweck’s Mindset a read. Then go back to old books you know and love, and see how the wisdom of the past can be backed up with the science of the present. It's amazing to see how many of the classics like Your Erroneous Zones have the same view on how a growth mindset can help you succeed.