What Is a Growth Mindset?

A practical idea for believing in our own potential

I recently listened to the audio version of Mindset by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck. The book is an in-depth exploration of this key idea: people with growth mindsets tend to find more lasting happiness and success than those with fixed mindsets.

She explores real-world applications of these mindsets in professionals from a variety of different fields, with concrete examples including CEOs, athletes, and more. Her book combines practical advice with well-researched storytelling.

Defining the two mindsets

At the risk of oversimplifying, I’d break down her definitions as follows.

• Someone with a fixed mindset believes that people have innate talent and ability, and that you can’t develop or improve when you’re not naturally good at something.
• Someone with a growth mindset believes that people are changeable, and that you can practice and develop your skills with determination and repetition.

Importantly, Dweck notes that you can have a fixed mindset about some things, and a growth mindset about others. This can explain why we might feel willing to pursue certain things but hesitant about others.

For example, I used to have a fixed mindset about visual art: I didn’t think I could create art because I don’t have natural talent for it. Meanwhile, I’ve always had a growth mindset about writing and regularly teach my students that they can improve as writers even if they feel they’ve never had a knack for it.

Looking at your mindset(s)

To start with, you can self-assess and consider your beliefs to determine if you have a fixed mindset or growth mindset, and if you might have different mindsets about different areas of your life.

If you answer yes to these two questions, you might already have a growth mindset…

• Do you believe you can learn new and different things as you get older, even things that were hard for you in the past?
• When you run into a challenging problem, do you want to learn more about it (instead of running in the other direction)?

If you answer yes to the next two questions, you might have a more fixed mindset (but that isn’t a problem!)…

• Do you think that people without a gift in a certain area shouldn’t be encouraged to pursue work or hobbies in that field?
• Did you ever feel pigeonholed by something like a low test score and decide you might as well give up on (for example) fractions in math class, or remembering dates in history class?

It can also help to think about what mindsets your parents and other influential adults in your life had when you were growing up. We often get a lot of messages about what people can and can’t do based on what our parents believed when we were kids.

Finding opportunities to grow

With a growth mindset, identifying hesitations in certain areas or memories like lower test scores in some subjects can be the start of opportunities for learning. We can see this in the work of skilled teachers, who might be experts at techniques like guiding students to see fractions through visual aids or manipulative blocks, or who offer new and fun ways to memorize dates and definitions.

Unfortunately, a lot of people feel discouraged early on by teachers whose fixed mindsets affected their teaching. Did you ever have a teacher tell you or imply that you just weren’t good at a certain subject?

I remember my brother had a teacher who told his whole class that she “would probably have a stroke before [they] learned to tell time.” I’ve always wondered how many students in that class shrugged their shoulders and believed what the teacher said. On the other hand, maybe a lot of students shared the story like my brother did, and had parents like ours who offered support to learn in different ways at home.

Of course, many factors can contribute to the mindsets we grow up with and how we think and feel as adults. A cool thing is that Dweck believes that we can cultivate a growth mindset, if we so choose.

Dweck says we can practice “talking back” to our fixed mindset ideas, and looking for ways to grow and improve. We can seek advice or help from people who know the skills we want to develop. We can take a class. We can read a book, or watch a video.

A growth mindset doesn’t mean false encouragement or lying to ourselves or someone else. It means noticing and accepting where you have room for improvement, and actively planning and practicing the development of your skills.

Growing collaboratively

As the book goes on, Dweck also looks at growth mindset in business contexts and how it can guide a method of leadership that emphasizes collaboration over competition. Just as a thoughtful teacher can encourage students, a thoughtful leader can help employees achieve more of their potential and feel more satisfied in their work.

I like how Dweck encourages us to track our progress over time and to be realistic in our feedback to ourselves and others. Instead of saying, “good job,” look at what went well and also what needs more work. You can encourage yourself and others with practical ideas for continued growth, while also acknowledging effort and progress.

I appreciate the book as a teacher, but it’s even more useful in looking at the ways I talk to myself as a writer and creative person through thoughts that aren’t always helping me grow. All in all, her book is a good read (or listen!), and it’s helped me see ways that I sometimes get in my own way with old beliefs about what I can’t do or am not good at.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur or writer or artist or all of the above, if you like to think about your thinking, you might well find Mindset has something for you, too.