Carol Dweck’s research into mindset has been influential, revealing how beliefs that people carry through their lives affect their chances for self-confidence, happiness, and success.
As we know from our own experience and by observing the lives of others, raw intelligence does not equate to success. Many other factors come into the success equation, including beliefs.
If you believe that intelligence is a factor given at birth, instance then your life will be about proving to others that your fixed amount is high. You have to look smart and act smart if you want people to think that you really are smart. You do not ask “Will I learn something from this?” but rather, “Will I succeed or fail/be accepted or rejected/ be seen as a winner or loser?” This in a nut shell is Fixed Mindset.
With a Growth Mindset, on the other hand, we will see our natural traits or abilities simply start as a starting point, and through experience, effort and learning move toward what we want to do or be. Our IQ or personality only form part of our potential, rather than restricting us. Life is about the excitement of wondering how far we can go by developing our interests and skills to the max. The two outlooks could scarcely be more different. One sees our qualities as carved in stone, the other as part of a movable feast. Each puts us on quite different paths of thought and action.
People with a Fixed Mindset don’t believe in effort, have a fear of challenge and have much less appetite for risk. If things are not going well, they are likely to give up, asking, “What’s the point?” In contrast, Dweck notes, “The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the Growth Mindset.
The growth and fixed mindsets can be seen as basic psychological domains, like introversion and extroversion, yet recognising them in ourselves provides a space in which we can change. As soon as you think you know everything and deserve to be recognised and rewarded for it, you have stopped learning and are inviting failure. Continual reinvention and discovery is the only thing that will keep you relevant, useful, and valuable to others.