Change is the Only Constant in Life: My Path from Success to Failure to Success
Prior to reading Dweck’s book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, I frankly had never given much thought as to how my life has been a series of successes and failures which could all be explained by her fixed and growth mindset model. Now, I understand better how my failures actually have contributed to my successes. I feel that in order for me to be successful, if I find myself in a fixed mindset, I will need to be able to change to a growth mindset since I will undoubtedly be constantly faced with challenges requiring me to have a growth mindset to overcome.
Dweck opens her book by talking about a research project she did early in her career which involved young students being asked to solve a difficult puzzle. Somewhat to her surprise a couple of the students had reactions such as “I love a challenge” and “you know, I was hoping this would be informative.” It was these reactions which caused her to realize that “intellectual skills could be cultivated through effort,” which is the core belief of the growth mindset. She further notes that “not only weren’t they discouraged by failure, they didn’t even think they were failing. They thought they were learning.”
Dweck did another study while at Columbia where students had their brain waves measured and they could actually see the difference in people’s brain waves. These people were asked hard questions, and Dweck observed that “people with a fixed mindset were only interested when the feedback reflected on their ability. Their brain waves showed them paying close attention when they were told whether their answers were right or wrong.” The subjects in the fixed mindset were focused only on the correctness of their answer because in the fixed mindset, any imperfection is a sign that your traits are bad and cannot be changed.
Dweck also observed, “But when they were presented with information that could help them learn, there was no sign of interest. Even when they’d gotten an answer wrong, they were not interested in learning what the right answer was.” Just as the fixed mindset believes that flaws are a sign of bad qualities, they also avoid effort as they believe if you do have good qualities that everything comes easily as a sign of your intellect, and that effort should not be necessary.
In my third and fourth grades, I was not in the advanced math class. However in fifth grade I was given the opportunity to be in the advanced math class. I was initially terrified, worried if I would fit in. What would happen if the material was too difficult? I succeeded in that class, and when I look back on both the class and more specifically the teacher, I see that he taught all of us using the growth mindset. Throughout the course we had many opportunities to make corrections on homework and tests, to the point that if the class all did poorly on a test, he would see it as his failure, not ours, and would work through the material with us again.
He did not want us to care about how well we did on the test, instead he wanted the test to reflect how much effort we put in, and how much we had learned, which are the skills valued by the growth mindset. He also encouraged us to work through problems with others, sometimes forcing us to work in groups in order to help us to not compete with each other in a deconstructive manner, as those with the fixed mindset often do. He also valued our questions. At the time, we all thought he was incredibly easy to side track by asking questions, but in reality his objective was to help us find our passion and interests in math.
I entered a new school for seventh grade and soon discovered that they were very “old school” in their teaching methods. On the first day of school, the math teacher detailed how every assignment and test had to be submitted on time, without the opportunity to make any corrections. She also did not encourage questions during class. In fact, when I tried to ask a clarifying question to better understand the concept, she did not encourage my learning and instead looked at my learning process of effort and inquiry as a sign of weakness, like the fixed mindset sees it.
We were also never allowed to work with others as she saw this as a form of effort, which the fixed mindset believes is “for those who don’t have the ability.” She also put great emphasis on tests because she believed, as Dweck states in explaining the fixed mindset, “you can simply measure the fixed ability right now and project it into the future. Just give the test or ask the expert.”
I had come from an elementary school where I was being taught more than just math, I was being taught the growth mindset: to value effort, to see failure as an opportunity, and as Dweck says, “to dig in and do what it takes” instead of “blaming someone else”. I was now in a new middle school which was trying to tear down that work ethic of the growth mindset, and replace it with the fixed mindset where effort was a sign of weakness. My grades started to seriously slip and I was falling behind on assignments as I was no longer encouraged to get a deeper understanding of the material, but rather to merely memorize it.
I no longer understood what I was doing, however I came to the decision, with the help and support of my parents, that I needed to switch schools. For a while I viewed it as a sign of weakness, that I was not up to snuff, as I was still in the fixed mindset, but I eventually came to my senses and was able to switch back into the growth mindset. Dweck found that “the more depressed people with the growth mindset felt, the more they took action to confront their problems, the more they made sure to keep up with their schoolwork, and the more they kept up with their lives. The worse they felt, the more determined they became!”.
In my new school the teachers used the growth mindset so that even though I entered school nearly half way through the first semester of seventh grade, my teachers, especially my math teacher, helped rebuild my motivation and confidence. Still damaged from the fixed mindset, I looked at math as something I couldn’t do, and was proved wrong by the teacher and TA explaining every problem I got wrong with an emphasis on understanding the core concept. I was reintroduced to a growth mindset environment where questions were answered with great thought, and our grade for the class was based on both correctness and completeness, as they valued our effort.
The change in school impacted me in other ways also. I chose the initial school partially because the majority of my current friend group also chose that school. I was concerned that I could not make new friends at a school full of strangers and that I would be completely starting over in my social life. This belief was a huge misjudgment on my part, as when I entered seventh grade at the school with the fixed mindset teachers, many of my friends started to take on aspects of the fixed mindset including, as Dweck put it, “proving you’re smart or talented.” As it turned out, I only made a few new friendships at this school, and actually lost a few of my longstanding friendships, because seemingly everyone believed, as Dweck states, that “the lower you are, the better I feel is the idea.”
Having stayed in contact with a few of my friends, most of whom are going to universities, including the one I’m currently attending, it appears that my choice to change back to the growth mindset instead of accepting the fixed mindset was not the only path to my current accomplishments. Some of my friends may have been able to keep the growth mindset throughout the two years of middle school, or fallen into the fixed mindset, but were then able to work their way out, or could have similar success while being in the fixed mindset.
The friends who still have the fixed mindset are by no means less successful, but as Dweck summarizes, “the growth mindset allows people to value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome.” Why did I change back to the growth mindset? As Dweck responds “believing talents can be developed allows people to fulfill their potential.”
When I look back at my life so far, I know for me that I have had to change my mental mindset, not only to be able to become successful, but for my very own well being. In a way, the negative experience that I had in seventh grade was actually a good experience, because it showed me that I was capable of making such large changes in my life at a relatively young age. I have used those lessons over the subsequent years when I have been faced with challenges in both academic and social situations, and I expect that will continue to be the case as I complete college and enter the next phase of my life.
