Mindset – the new psychology of success

The opening paragraphs from Carol Dweck’s book Mindset — the new psychology of success:

“One day, my students sat me down and ordered me to write this book. They wanted people to be able to use our work to make their lives better. It was something I’d wanted to do for a long time, but it became my number one priority.

My work is part of a tradition in psychology that shows the power of people’s beliefs. These may be beliefs we’re aware of or unaware of, but they strongly affect what we want and whether we succeed in getting it. This tradition also shows how changing people’s beliefs – even the simplest beliefs – can have profound effects.

In this book, you’ll learn how a simple belief abut yourself – a belief we discovered in our research – guides a large part of your life. In fact, it permeates every part of your life. Much of what you think of as your personality actually grows out of this “mindset”. Much of what may be preventing you from fulfilling your potential grows out of it.

No book has ever explained this mindset and shown people how to make use of it in their lives. You’ll suddenly understand the greats – in the sciences and arts, in sports, and in business – and the would-have-beens. You’ll understand your mate, your boss, your friends, your kids. You’ll see how to unleash your potential – and your children’s.”

Reading Mindset – the new psychology of success immediately changed the way I thought about myself. After just a few pages I told myself:

“From now on and forever more, I am going to display the growth mindset!” 

And I have!  

I’m not perfect at it, but I’m getting better and better.

To keep me on track, I’ve written my own growth-mindset “manifesto”! I read it every month or so and every few days  test myself to see how much I can remember. I want to make the growth-mindset second-nature for me.

The growth mindset says that, for me to succeed, I don’t have to be talented; I just have to try really, really hard!  If I commit to something and try really hard at it  and keep exploring new strategies, I’ll probably succeed — or at least I’ll end up getting something good  out of the exercise, even if it wasn’t what I was expecting.  A strong relationship does exist between hard work and success. 

The growth mindset tells me I am an evolving creature who is supposed to keep learning all my life.  It tells me it’s fun to learn new things and to tackle the hard projects in life.

It’s such a simple message – but so liberating.  And backed up by a huge body of research by Dweck and others that proves that the growth-mindset works.  

How exciting: just a tiny tweaking of our thinking and whammo! — a huge leap in our personal effectiveness!