Some people have a fixed mindset and some people have a growth mindset.
These concepts were introduced by Carol Dweck in the book Flexible Mind: A New Look at the Psychology of Adult and Child Development (Mann, Ivanov, and Farber).
People with a fixed mindset believe that personality traits and intelligence cannot be changed. Others, with an attitude to growth and development, are convinced that they have the power to change a lot and, moreover, they are most interested in developing themselves. The former are inactive when their achievements are low, and when their achievements are high, they live in fear of losing these achievements. The second ones are not afraid of difficulties and are happy to meet challenges if it develops them. It is clear that the first live poorly, and the second open all the way…
Which setting do you prefer? Take a little test, imagine that you are a young man who has a bad day. Today you went to a very important activity for you, which you really like. The professor returned the checked tests to you, you got a C plus. You are extremely disappointed. When you got home in the evening, you found a receipt for paying a fine for illegal parking. Completely upset, you called your best friend to share your feelings with him, but he kind of brushed you off.
What do you think? How will you feel? What will you do?
People with a fixed mindset perceive what happened as a direct assessment of their competence and worth, so they are more likely to respond, “I would feel rejected.” «I would have thought I was a total failure.» «What a fool I am.» «That I’m a loser.» «I would feel pathetic and stupid — anyone is better than me.» «That I suck.» About their life in such a situation, they think: «My life is just miserable.» «This is not life.» «Someone upstairs definitely doesn’t like me.» «The whole world turned on me.» «Someone wants to destroy me.» «No one loves me, everyone just hates me.» «Life is unfair and all efforts are in vain.» “Life is shit. I’m a fool. Nothing good ever happens to me.» «I am the most miserable person in the world.»
Note that this is not a matter of low self-esteem or pessimism: in more favorable situations, they feel exactly the same optimistic, intelligent, attractive and respectable people as people with a growth mindset.
And how will they get out of the predicament? “I won’t invest so much time and effort anymore to prove myself.” (In other words, «I won’t let anyone judge me anymore.») «I won’t do anything.» «I’ll lay down.» «I’ll get drunk.» «We hire from the belly.» «I’ll yell at someone if my arm comes up.» «Eat a chocolate bar.» «I will listen to music and sulk.» «I’ll lock myself in the bathroom and I’ll sit there.» «I’ll fight someone.» «I will cry». «I’ll break something.» «What can be done here?»
You know, when I wrote this chapter, I deliberately made a mark not of a deuce, but of a triple. And she was talking about the current assessment, and not about the results of the semester. And it was a parking ticket, not a car accident. And the friend “as if brushed aside”, and not frankly “rejected” you. Nothing catastrophic or irreversible happened. Yet out of these initial conditions, the fixed mindset created a sense of total failure and powerlessness.
When I described this situation to people with the growth mindset, they said this: “I need to get more serious about my studies, be more careful when parking my car, and ask my friend if something happened to him that day.” . “A three will show me that I need to put in a lot more effort in this subject, but before the end of the semester I will still have time to improve my academic performance.”
How will they get out of the situation? Easily! “I will think about how I can better prepare (or change the method of preparation) for the next test, pay the fine and find out what happened to my friend the next time I talk.” “I’ll look at exactly what I screwed up on the test, work harder, pay my fine ticket, and call a friend to explain why I was in a bad mood yesterday.” “I’ll work through the material for the next test more thoroughly, talk to the teacher, be more careful about parking (and maybe protest the fine) and find out what’s wrong with my friend.”
When we praise children for their own achievements (done or not done, made for such and such an assessment), we develop a fixed mindset in them. It is much more effective to praise for the willingness to learn and overcome difficulties, emphasizing the importance not of the result itself, but of the emergence of a “delta” — the difference between what the child had “yesterday” and what became “today”.