Chapter 2: Truth Behind Growth Mindset
Growth mindset is a highly valuable tool that can be used to assist individuals in having greater results from their efforts towards personal growth. As you have learned in the previous chapter, there are many misconceptions floating around about growth mindset. Here, let’s focus on what is true about growth mindset. Growth mindset is a valuable skill that can assist many people in having greater results from virtually anything they set out to accomplish, whether it be learning new skills, understanding new languages, or doing virtually anything else they desire to accomplish. This chapter will help you identify the truth about growth mindset and the differences between growth mindset and optimism or other mindset practices and behaviors.
Misconceptions
One of the biggest misconceptions about growth mindset is that it is the same thing as being open minded or flexible in your beliefs. This is untrue. Being open-minded, positive, and flexible in your beliefs is often the belief on what true growth mindset is, but this is actually called “false growth mindset” in the research community. This is essentially people who have an “I already have it, and I always have” attitude. What this means is that they have a fixed belief on their intelligence level, which is exactly what a fixed mindset is. They refuse to actually foster growth, so they delude themselves with these beliefs as an opportunity to believe that they are growing, when in reality they are not.
Being open-minded to other people’s beliefs and new things is great, but it does not mean that you are actually learning anything. Furthermore, there is no way to ever have a truly complete growth mindset. It is virtually impossible, as we are all fixed in some way or another. It is important that you acknowledge this and embrace it, while still aspiring to experience growth anyway. This is the only way you can truly foster as much of a growth mindset as humanly possible, and reap the benefits that you are seeking from it.
Another misconception is that growth mindset is about praise and rewarded efforts. Unproductive efforts that are merely done for the reward or outcome is not considered to be growth mindset. Instead, it is effort put in merely for the reward at the end. True growth mindset has nothing to do with reward or outcome, rather it is based entirely on the learning and growing process itself. When you are invested in a growth mindset, you are invested in the process regardless of the outcome. While you may have a hope or idea for what outcome you desire, this is not entirely the purpose of your work. Instead, you are motivated to actually learn the process, and you want to retain as much information as possible.
Many people such as teachers and bosses attempt to use growth mindset by showering their students or employees with rewards for a job well done. If the students or employees are not fostering a true growth mindset, they act with very little motivation or effort. Their motivation comes from the reward itself, and not the learning process. While this might motivate them to get their work done, it has not successfully encouraged them to foster a growth mindset.
Finally, mindset is a lot harder than “just do it.” You cannot simply “have” a growth mindset. You have to want one, and be willing to work for it. If you are not, you will never have a growth mindset. Growth mindset comes from being motivated to work and do well. If you are not motivated, you will not work and do well. You might get things done, but you will not successfully learn anything. You cannot simply “have” a growth mindset, you have to want one, and invest in having one. It is something that you have to work for on a regular basis, or you will never have one.
Positivity VS. Optimism
In order to truly understand what growth mindset is, it is important that we look at the difference between optimism and positivity. Although they may sound like the same thing to you, there are actually fundamental differences between the two. Understanding these will help you to understand why it is important to be optimistic as opposed to positive.
Positivity is essentially the act of being positive. The way it tends to be taught, it essentially requires you to ignore all things negative, uncomfortable, or otherwise non-beneficial to your ideal goal. Instead, you must focus solely on the positive things and let the rest “work itself out.”
Optimism is similar but allows you to actually regard the negative stuff. You are allowed to work through it, embrace it, and move forward in your life with the good and the bad. The benefit here, however, is that you choose to see the good in life. Even though you may be experiencing and working through bad parts, you are willing to actually embrace these parts and learn from them. You view them as a positive by allowing them to be lessons and tools in driving you forward, rather than obstacles and excuses that hold you back.
When you are fostering a growth mindset, it is important that you avoid attempting to be a positive-only person who refrains from recognizing their reality. This is not beneficial, and it does not help you in any way shape or form. If you truly want to have a growth mindset, you will foster optimism. You will willingly embrace the hard and “bad” parts of life, and use them as an opportunity to learn so that you can do better. The key element is that you are using the opportunity to learn. Remember, growth mindset heavily focuses on learning, and one’s ability to continue learning. If you do not embrace this, you are going to struggle to embrace a true growth mindset. You have to understand the difference between the two and choose optimism over positivity.
True Growth Mindset
While positive outlooks, open-mindedness and rewarding yourself and others for a job well done can all be valuable attributes, they do not encompass what true growth mindset actually is.
Put simply, growth mindset is the mindset that accompanies the growth process within’ our brains. It is the mindset that we have when we believe that we can do things, so we do. This is the mindset that is required for us to actually take on activities and experiences that encourage us to experience genuine growth in our minds. This is the activity that triggers the growth, reinforcement, and priming of our neural pathways. It comes when we learn new skills, expand our abilities with existing skills, and otherwise engage in learning and activity.
It is not something we can “have,” but rather it is something we work towards. It is not something we can accomplish and keep, but rather a regular maintenance process that we continue to balance over time. Growth mindset is not something that comes easily. It is something we must be motivated to have, and therefore we invest in having it. We cannot skate by on unmotivated and unengaged actions and call it growth mindset because no growth is happening. It only occurs when we have motivated, engaged, and productive mindset strategies and actions that result in growth of the neural pathways that exist in our brains.
Understanding the truth about growth mindset as well as what actually constitutes as growth mindset will enable you to understand exactly how this trait can assist you in life. While you can certainly choose to foster a false sense of growth mindset if you desire, you should know that this has no true benefit for you or your brain and will result in you failing to reap any rewards from the effort you put towards your personal growth. True growth mindset takes effort, engagement, investment, and motivation to attain. Even then, you can never truly attain it. Instead, you will always be working towards it in a constant effort to increase your capacity for having a growth mindset.
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