Development or stagnation? Permanence or transience? ‘I really care’ or ‘I don’t care’? Which side are you on? You don’t have to answer right away. If you hesitate, it is a good time for reading this preview, and in consequence the whole Carol Dweck’s book ‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Changing The Way You Think To Fulfil Your Potential’ in which growth mindset guarantees us a place on the podium in our life. No shortcuts, no special treatment and no indulgence in every area of our activity. Remember this notion: growth mindset. And now say it aloud and fulfill yourself because the door to any possibilities was opened.

Mindset – what leads to the top?

Let’s agree. Things don’t happen overnight. There are people who don’t  think it’s good for them. Fortunately there are also such people (how great they are!) who decide to write a great thing. Because Carol Dweck’s ‘The new psychology of success’ isn’t just next simple publishing offer in the field of personal growth, building the own happiness in world full of dangers, achieving success in the fast and simple way. It is a huge compendium of knowledge about our ideas, beliefs, mechanisms of action. Dweck deserves the scientific monument. Perhaps one day we will build such in our office garden. What stands this publication out comparing to the others?

Above all brilliantly conducted narration, very credible and based on long-term research of Dweck, American psychologist cooperating with Stanford University in the USA. There is no impression of chaos while reading, in spite of plenty of examples and analyses of individual cases. She processes two mindsets – fixed and growth. Look at this:

‘Believing that your qualities are carved in stone – the fixed mindset – creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character – well, then you’d better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. There’s another mindset in which these traits are not simply a hand you’re dealt and have to live with, always trying to convince yourself and others that you have a royal flush when you’re secretly worried it’s a pair of tens. In this mindset, the hand you’re dealt is just the starting point for development. 

Yet those people with the growth mindset were not labeling themselves and throwing up their hands. Even though they felt distressed, they were ready to take the risks, confront the challenges, and keep working at them’.

You can consume this book same way as a cupcake. It is also possible to apply its elements, giving a space to yourself in order successively make life changes meaning work, school or family. Apart from huge dose of the knowledge and advices in the field of growth mindset we gain the same from areas which influence the ultimate shape of our attitude – relations with family and friends, intelligence, experience, relations with our supervisors, our role in society and microcommunities.

Dweck – motivational leader

If we were supposed to define, where the power of motivation actually lies, in two words would be enough, and more precisely one full name: Carol Dweck. Why?

This book is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I read endless books and articles. The information was overwhelming. I’d never written in a popular way. It was intimidating. Does it seem easy for me? Way back when, that’s exactly what I would have wanted you to think. Now I want you to know the effort it took—and the joy it brought’.

Now you can try to jump into being her and wonder, whether a mission of writing such a book would overwhelm you enough to land with fixed mindset or on the contrary – frequently cracking the safe but directly to the target, i.e. growth mindset?

In growth mindset it is all about taking a risk and doing your best while being fully engaged into your goal realization even when you think that you are not good enough or you can’t make it.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s writing a master’s thesis, passing an exam, learning foreign language or playing some of Paganini’s tracks.

Always develop your mindset. As Dweck says:

  1. Everyone is born with an intense drive to learn. What could put an end to this exuberant learning? The fixed mindset.
  2. Is this the way you want to live, giving any development up?
  3. Next time this happens, don’t fool yourself. It’s the fixed mindset. Put yourself in a growth mindset. Picture your brain forming new connections as you meet the challenge and learn. Keep on going.
  4. Think about effort as a positive, constructive force, not as a big drag. Try it out.
  5. Is there something you’ve always wanted to do but were afraid you weren’t good at? Make a plan to do it. 
  6. Think about all situations in which other people excelled yourself, and you simply assumed that they were more intelligent or talented. And now consider the possibility, that maybe they used better strategies, studied more, trained more and took more effort to overcome obstacles. You can do it as well if you only want.
  7. Character, heart, will, and the mind of a champion.
  8. Thanks to all failures people with growth mindset gain motivation. They are kind of source of information or an alert signal – because of that every further step in life is burdened with smaller risk of mistake.
  9. Our mission is developing people’s potential. Let’s use all the lessons of the growth mindset—and whatever else we can—to do this.
  10. Change can be tough, but I’ve never heard anyone say it wasn’t worth it.

Imagine that you have two friends. One of them plans everything very cautiously and scrupulously, he is careful. Sometimes so much that he doesn’t take any action to accomplish the purpose. He doesn’t do this because targeting means creating perfect conditions for success or failure. This thought scares him. He lives his life, takes almost no actions, pursue them just well but only because he picks such which will bring him a success. In the years he doesn’t get much experience and knowledge, and so he is still  afraid of the same things and makes the same mistakes.

The other friend adopted another tactic. He decided that it will be quick and courageous to take on different purposes’ implementation; even when he knows that a chance to succeed is small. Even when he doesn’t know exactly what to do and whether he will deal with it. However this thought doesn’t scare him because he focuses on one thing – to understand what is missing and what he doesn’t know already. In the years he tries many things and only some of them turn into success. However every mistake, every failure, every lesson, project provides him new diversed experience and knowledge. Thanks to that every next challenge is going to be easier. Over time he does much more, more quickly, better because he doesn’t simply make some mistakes. He becomes more and more brave, more and more self-confident until he reaches the moment when he becomes one of the smartest persons in the room. But still he doesn’t realize it. Because it was not a purpose of his development. So what don’t I know? What can I learn more?

Choose growth mindset and never regret any decision you ever make. On this side of the force you are going to feel simply well and while engaging into your goals realization, a way to the top can be bumpy but you will never lose power to reach it. We’re already on this path – are you going to join us?