A few years back I read the fabulous book Mindset by Dr Carol Dweck.
I had always thought of myself as an open-minded learning kind of girl. I love to learn.
However, through reading the book, I realised that – yes I do love to learn – but I also love to win. You see early on in my high school career I was one of those unlucky kids for whom most of the work came very easily. Straight A’s from year 7 to year 11 without much effort at all. I adored school. Adored learning, reading, soaking up new skills.
I was smart. I was somebody who achieved top grades without trying…until I didn’t.
Until I reached year 11 and the work was not so easy without studying. Until that time I had considered that I might become a doctor. As year 11 slid by it became apparent that it was a goal perhaps out of my league. I did not know how to work for my grades. I did not know how to be challenged, and I did not like the feeling. I scraped through on my straight A streak, but only just holding on. Then year 12 – that final year – the year that determines your entry to university (or not) and I struggled to come to terms with not just being able to breeze through.
Ultimately, I gave up on my doctor dream. I could have worked harder. I could have made it my single-minded goal. I could have achieved the dream I said I wanted since year 9. But then what? If I had worked really hard and not made it…that would have seemed far worse. So instead, I drifted through, passed all of my subjects and did, in fact, get into a wonderful course – not medicine but Biophysics – and it was fascinating.
What I learned about myself reading Dr Dweck’s book, was that I have lived my life believing I had a growth mindset – loving the acquisition of knowledge – but in fact, recognising a youth stymied by a fixed mindset. Believing I was smart and letting that be my guiding light. Rather than embracing the challenge of growth, enjoying sometimes being wrong, facing the unknown – I mentally gave up.
I was that person who accepted “Maths is not my strong point, I never seem to get it the way the others do.” and so I did not. And what happens when exam time rolls around? That I’m not really good at maths track runs its race and before I know it I have all but given up. Because not to have given 110% and failed, allowed me to shamefully acknowledge to my peers that “I really should have worked harder, I didn’t do enough practice exams, I could have done better if I had applied myself”. Lucky for me my mindset protected me from the shame of giving 110% and not quite making it still.
I recognised that I show some of the same traits in my adult life. Want to play a game? I’m all in, competitor boots on…until I start to lose, then I’m all apathy and “don’t really care it’s just a game”.
Work? I’ll fight for my ideas, until I see it starting to turn, then “Oh well, ultimately not my call, if that’s what you want then…”
Parenting? Well, one could argue that raising kids is a losing battle for a fixed mindset person anyway. But my “Do it my way or I’ll lose interest and you can do it any way you want just don’t ask me for help because I know I’m right”…Hmmmm….
Since reading the book I am often snapped into a reminder of my attitudes and mindsets. I don’t always manage to control them, but awareness is stage 1 at the very least right? Sometimes I am capable of telling myself to back off and get out of the way. And sometimes not.
And sometimes not.
But I give thanks to Dr Dweck and her work and all the subsequent studies that have been done to spread the mindset methodology. It was a real lightning bolt moment of truth for me when I realised what I had, but at the same time, it was one of those fabulous moments when I realised that my past mind did not have to shape my future mind.
I’m giving 110% to rounding out my fixed mindset moments, taking off those sharp edges and making them more growth orientated. My growth mindset moments are the happiest and giving 110% to the pursuit of those seems a winnable task…even if I don’t make it, any small increment is a happiness boost.