“I, on the other hand, thought human qualities were carved in stone. You were smart or you weren’t, and failure meant you weren’t. It was that simple. If you could arrange successes and avoid failures (at all costs), you could stay smart. Struggles, mistakes, perseverance were just no part of this picture.”
Carol Dweck’s disclosure specifies that she too espoused a fixed mindset before the inauguration of her three decades-old research. Even though Dweck was an accomplished woman, she insistently backed a fixed mindset. Eventually, Dweck became an expert in terms of mindsets as a result of demystifying all the idiosyncratic, flawed suppositions as regards human abilities.
“For thirty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value.”
Carol Dweck’s proclamations in Mindset: The New Psychology of Success are dependable and resounding because they are based on the outcomes of investigations that span three decades. Accomplishment in life is a psychological concern that is contingent on whether one possesses a growth or fixed mindset. A growth mindset upturns the probabilities of bringing one’s aspirations to fruition.
“That the photographer Cindy Sherman, who has been on virtually every list of the most important artists of the twentieth century, failed her first photography course? That Geraldine Page, one of our greatest actresses, was advised to give it up for lack of talent?”
Cindy Sherman and Geraldine Page’s case studies are representative and attestable. Dweck refers to real life samples to endorse the applicability of her text and the affirmations that she poses. Cindy Sherman’s foremost disappointment did not delimit her residual life. The fiasco gave her the prospect to amend her dexterity in photography. By the same token, Geraldine Page did not relinquish her aspiration of being an actress because she did not exhibit adept acting faculty in her earlier years. Accordingly, abilities and aptitude are not congenital; they are aspects that are fostered by way of systematic drills and training.
“Benjamin Barber, an eminent political theorist, once said, “I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures... . I divide the world into the learners and nonlearners.” What on earth would make someone a nonlearner? Everyone is born with an intense drive to learn. Infants stretch their skills daily. Not just ordinary skills, but the most difficult tasks of a lifetime, like learning to walk and talk. They never decide it’s too hard or not worth the effort. 10 Babies don’t worry about making mistakes or humiliating themselves. They walk, they fall, they get up. They just barge forward.”
Mindsets are pervasive in every area of life. Therefore, Benjamin Barber’s avowal is pertinent because it goes beyond the political domain (which is his sphere). The illustration about the children’s proclivity for learning throughout their infantile stages highlights the indispensability of a growth mindset. If the children were to be disheartened by the exertion of learning then they would not learn to tread all their lives. No child is born when all her skills are copiously advanced. The abilities progress through unvarying learning that prompts them to translate their mortifications and disasters into accomplishment.
“The fixed mindset limits achievement. It fills people’s minds with interfering thoughts, it makes effort disagreeable, and it leads to inferior learning strategies. What’s more, it makes other people into judges instead of allies. Whether we’re talking about Darwin or college students, important achievements require a clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies. Plus allies in learning. This is what the growth mindset gives people, and that’s why it helps their abilities grow and bear fruit.”
This passage relates to the keynote of Carol Dweck’s Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Espousal of a fixed mindset is analogous curtailing one’s prospects because the mindset obstructs progressive learning. Comparatively, a growth mindset expands the possibility of attaining the set objects. Accordingly, a growth mindset is more expedient than a fixed mindset since the end results of a growth mindset are unbounded.
