Growth Mindsets: Creating Motivation and Productivity

The key to success and achieving our goals is not necessarily persistence, hard work and focus. These behaviours are the by-product of something else. What is actually critical to our success is our mindset. Mindsets are beliefs about ourselves and our most basic qualities, such as intelligence, talents and personality. We all have innate talents and skills, things that we are naturally good at or that set us apart from other people. The key to success is the adoption and development of a growth mindset that creates persistence and focus. When we realize we can change our own abilities, we bring our game to a whole new level. Similarly, people with a fixed mindset see hard work and effort as a bad thing, something only people with low capabilities and intelligence have to exert. In contrast, people with a growth mindset see effort as a good thing, the thing that makes us smart and as a way to grow. How do we move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset? Fixed mindsets ask: References:

growth mindset | The Coaching Journey Are geniuses born or created? What about natural goalscorers? We’ve all seen a player who just has that knack. Inzaghi was just given the gift of always being in the right place to score. Messi has god-given talent. Beckham always had that knack for hitting the top corner from a free kick. It’s my belief that the thought process mentioned above is a seriously flawed notion that many people may hold. Whenever most athletes describe their own feats or the ability of another “worldly” superstar, usually the talk of natural ability, god given talent, or a knack for scoring (or defending, or coming up in the clutch, etc) always comes into play. An insult. First, let’s look at why I believe natural ability is a myth at the highest levels, and then let’s look at how believing in the myth has catastrophic consequences at the youth level. Something important to understand first. Everyone who describes Messi talks about his natural talent. You have to fight to reach your dream. So what happened?

The Best Resources On Helping Our Students Develop A “Growth Mindset” Photo Credit: Antoine Gady via Compfight ‘Growth Mindset Starts With Us, Not With Them’ is the first post in a two-part series at my Education Week Teacher column. Also check out Here Are The Movie Scenes That Readers Have Said Demonstrate A Growth Mindset – & I’m Still Looking For More The “question of the week” at my Education Week Teacher column this week is “How Can We Help Our Students Develop a Growth Mindset?” Carol Dweck, who identified the concept, will be one of the guests responding to that question, and several readers have already shared their ideas. You can find a specific lesson in my book, Helping Students Motivate Themselves, on how I incorporate the idea of a growth mindset in my classroom, and some of my other related ideas in my article in this month’s edition of ASCD Educational Leadership, Eight Things Skilled Teachers Think, Say, and Do. Here are my choices for The Best Resources On Helping Our Students Develop A “Growth Mindset”: Useful “Fixed” vs. Amazon, Ed.

How can you change from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset? Step1. Learn to hear your fixed mindset “voice.” As you approach a challenge, that voice might say to you “Are you sure you can do it? Maybe you don’t have the talent.” “What if you fail—you’ll be a failure” “People will laugh at you for thinking you had talent.” As you hit a setback, the voice might say, “This would have been a snap if you really had talent.” As you face criticism, you might hear yourself say, “It’s not my fault. Step 2. How you interpret challenges, setbacks, and criticism is your choice. So as you face challenges, setbacks, and criticism, listen to the fixed mindset voice and... Step 3. As you approach a challenge: THE FIXED-MINDSET says “Are you sure you can do it? THE GROWTH-MINDSET answers, “I’m not sure I can do it now, but I think I can learn to with time and effort.” FIXED MINDSET: “What if you fail—you’ll be a failure” GROWTH MINDSET: “Most successful people had failures along the way.” GROWTH MINDSET: “If I don’t try, I automatically fail. As you hit a setback:

Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives “If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve,” Debbie Millman counseled in one of the best commencement speeches ever given, urging: “Do what you love, and don’t stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities…” Far from Pollyanna platitude, this advice actually reflects what modern psychology knows about how belief systems about our own abilities and potential fuel our behavior and predict our success. Much of that understanding stems from the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, synthesized in her remarkably insightful Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (public library) — an inquiry into the power of our beliefs, both conscious and unconscious, and how changing even the simplest of them can have profound impact on nearly every aspect of our lives. One of the most basic beliefs we carry about ourselves, Dweck found in her research, has to do with how we view and inhabit what we consider to be our personality.