Setting the Mindset Straight: The Experience Through Injury
“Mindsets are an important part of your personality, but you can change them.” Within the ability of changing your mindset from a fixed mindset, to this subsequent growth mindset is crucial in regards too feeling a motive of success and greatness in your life. In which, throughout the novel,“Mindset The New Psychology Of Success” by Carol S. Dweck, demonstrates the different various aspects to both fixed traits and mindset as well as the growth mindset. In regard, she provides a way of grasping these mindsets in ways we have never even thought of before. As referring to these mindsets it is simply known to be that, the fixed mindset is ultimately based upon the individuals in which believe that their traits are considered to be, “fixed traits” and so, therefore are unable to apply some sort of change, in which is where I fall in a slight disagreement. In the fact that, I believe any individual is capable of applying some sort of change upon their mindset, but only if they apply the effort to want to change. While, on the other hand, I fall in some major agreements in regards that through a specific life experience and or something significant, that ones mindset both must and can be changed for better of them.
In regards to connections with Dweck, I have had first hand, personal experience with this motive of altering ones fixed mindset, to a growth mindset, in some type of manner throughout my life. In my years before middle school everything had felt alright, until it was the day middle school had started when everything would be turned upside down into the worst life ever. It was when middle school started, when the mindset in which I had my whole life never really felt existent anymore, I felt different. I didn’t know if it was whether because I would have more than one class everyday, or the overwhelmingness of the campus. I was able to find my way around these struggle of this fixed mindset, and took this matter into action and in about eighth grade I began starting in school therapy sessions. It has always been a constant struggle for me with my reading and writing and overall staying applied in school since around third grade, in which added to the anxiety and stress of not fitting in due to the fact I was placed in resource classes. This was just the beginning of everything it felt like. I got through middle school, but it was just the start of something I wasn’t prepared for. I wasn’t ready to step out on to a larger campus with more people. But I had to become prepared and ready for something new.
It was then the time of high school, in which came like a wave, simply regarding that one second it was all right and there and then the next second it wasn’t. I was ready for a new start, somewhere different. My freshman year of high school was probably one of the most defining years within all of high school experience. It started off perfect. I had a wonderful boyfriend and friends at the time, I was doing what I love, there was not much more I could ask for. Then, spring season came around, which meant lacrosse tryouts were just around the corner. Unfortunately, before tryouts I had knee issues and was struggling to complete the requirements they had for us. I knew then, that they were only looking for something specific, and that was the ability to run fast and well and I couldn’t for the life of me. There were basically no cuts so, I made the junior varsity team. I was upset with myself in that I had only qualified for the JV team, because lacrosse was my passion and my life it was sad knowing I wasn’t as good as everyone else. Luckily, playing on the junior varsity team my freshman year was the right move. When I was put in I would play my heart out, there was so much passion out on the field when I would engage with lacrosse. It was not until about three months into the season until the most tragic thing happened to me. I remember, very vividly everything that I felt after getting hit on the right side of head with shaft of the lacrosse stick. We were playing a game against Gunn High School, when I was heading toward the goal, a girl from the other team was attempting to check my stick and missed and slashed the right side of my head. It happened so quick I could barley tell if I was hit or not. After being hit, I kept running the field and then began starting to get dizzy and then knew she had hit my head and didn’t miss it. It was pretty devastating to say the least. It was only about two weeks until I went back to play lacrosse after the first concussion. I jumped back in way too soon, but I didn’t realize that at the time, clearly. Five weeks have gone by since my last concussion, but I was nervous to play and put myself in the same position as I did before. It was the second half of the game and I remember playing Los Gatos High School and those girls were vicious. It really felt like deja vu, I was hit again, on the right side of my head with the shaft of the lacrosse stick. But this time, the referees had called it and gave her a yellow card, and I was escorted off the field immediately. It was hard to identify if I had been concussed or not, but by the end of that night it was certain I had a pretty bad concussion. My mindset during this whole incident, was at the most fixed place it could possibly be. This major incident was the altering of my mindset. As Dweck shares in regards to the growth mindset is that, “clearly, people with the growth mindset strive when they’re stretching themselves.”In regards to this statement, I believe in order to stretch what is needed to strive, one must consider the growth mindset first, in which I struggled majorly with. After my two concussions I was out for the first of my freshman season. I decided to try again sophomore, and junior year but it just failed for me, I was no longer going to be able to play lacrosse. I knew it. Much of my time after my concussions I was depressed and confused. In Dweck’s novel she states that, “in short, people who believed in fixed traits feel an urgency to succeed, and when they do, they feel more pride.” In regards to this statement, I resonate well with in the sense that I didn’t let my concussions stop me from feeling some type pride in myself for what I have done in regards to lacrosse. Though I was unable to play lacrosse and it was just too much for me, had brought the opportunity to me of benign able to be to help the junior varsity lacrosse team as their team manager. It was difficult to deal with the lack of motivation and happiness during both my sophomore as well as junior year. Lacrosse was something I had wished about playing in college one day, and in that moment knowing there was nothing left in life for me was just so surreal. I have been to numerous physicians and doctors and in the end it felt like the were all in denial about what had happened. Luckily, I had my parents. They were heartbroken as well, but they understood my health was most important. It was difficult to take in the fact that it would be in my best interest to just stop playing.
As the end high school was approaching I was beginning to stress over almost everything it felt like. I would have headaches constantly, all day long, I would be irritable, I felt like I had all the symptoms of a concussion, all of the time. I was on medication, and seeing neurologists but, nothing was good enough, everything felt very negative. In Dweck’s novel she clearly states in that, “the more depressed people with the growth mindset felt (short of depression), the more they took action to comfort their problems, the more they made sure to keep up with their schoolwork, and the more they kept up with their lives.” In reference to this finding in which Carol Dweck shares with us demonstrates the clear motive I had when I was almost half way through my senior year. I no longer was able to keep this fixed mindset if I wanted to graduate, I needed to apply myself more than I already did. I tried harder my senior year, then I have ever tried before, I swear. In note of Dweck she shares that, “the fixed mindset stands in the way of development and change. The growth mindset is a starting point for change.” In significance to this piece of evidence from the novel, Mindsets, replicates the connection in which I had in regards to the idea of altering ones mindset from one fixed mindset to a growth mindset. It’s through the experiences and or the hurdles in which you face that will represent you in regards of your mindset. The growth mindset and the fixed mindset differ from each other in numerous ways in which people lack to clearly understand. As individuals we strive to feel the best we can and succeed at everything, but in regards to Dweck she states that, “the fixed mindset limits achievement.” Regarding to the statement in which she makes, is crucial in my whole experience in that by allowing yourself to endure the feelings of a fixed mindset, will limit whats really there for you. Despite all of the ups and downs that were faced along this whole process, it has allowed for my my mindsets to be challenged and to be altered in a way that I didn’t know was truly possible. As I was reading and thinking to myself about this novel in how it reflects upon me is that, if I were to obtain this type of growth mindset, while I was injured, going through this rough patch possibly I could still be playing lacrosse. I believe that in the mindset in which you have will better the chances of ones successes.
In wrapping up this understanding of these mindsets, Carol Dweck simply states, “We also know that there is a mindset that helps people cope well with setbacks, points them to good strategies, and leads them to act in their best interest”. I resonate well with Dweck in regards of this piece in the way that no matter the circumstance, theirs a direction in which their current mindset can point them. In connection with this of Dweck, the only way in order to cope was through the ability of both mental and physical types of therapy to regain that ability to want to act in the best given way. I believe that there is always a possibility for an individual to apply change, no matter the case. As we alter our mindsets, we are doing what is the best for us, making us feel how we should feel. Although, many would disagree on the fact in that not every individual can apply this sort of change, but, truly they can if they just believe and apply the effort for the change. As Dweck signifies in regards to changing ones mindset, she states, “But opening yourself up to growth make you more yourself, not less”. No matter the given situation, a moment upon growth is a moment you’re making yourself, a better you.
