“Strike Another Match, Go Start Anew”: Leaving the Fixed Mindset Behind
“She knows there’s no success like failure…”- Bob Dylan, “Love Minus Zero / No Limit”.
If I am being completely honest, I hated Carol Dweck’s Mindset: The New Psychology of Success at first. This had nothing to do with the actual content of the book- I just saw too much of myself in it. I saw the way Dweck described these people with fixed mindsets: people who believe their abilities are fixed, people who avoid challenges for fear of failure, compared to the way she described people with growth mindsets: people who believe abilities can be developed, who embrace failure as a learning experience. I was a classic case of the fixed mindset; labelling myself as stupid when I didn’t understand things immediately, avoided challenges out of fear of failure, gave up on things easily… Dweck’s book felt like a personal attack on me, even though I had been trying to transition out of the fixed mindset (although I did not call it a fixed mindset) for a while by the time I began reading the book.
Even though I didn’t like Dweck’s argument when I first began reading it, I soon realized that my resistance to her ideas were a result of my own fixed mindset, and with further reading and thought, I came to realize that she was right. This does not mean I agree with everything Dweck says- I believe she oversimplifies the effects of mindsets on depression and has too much faith in how far a mindset can take you, but I agree overall with her claim that anybody with a fixed mindset can and should switch to a growth mindset.
To illustrate how the mindsets affect depression, Dweck cites a study done on college students, and how students with fixed vs. growth mindsets were able to cope with depression. To no one’s surprise, Dweck writes that the growth-minded students fared much better than their fixed-minded counterparts. The fixed mindset students, Dweck writes, allowed themselves to slip further into their sadness, while the growth-minded students worked harder to keep their lives together. Dweck uses an example of a specific student: he has depression, but he goes to class, keeps up with his schoolwork, etc… She writes that he was, “coping the way people in the growth mindset tend to cope- with determination”. Although it is true that determination and effort help immensely with depression, Dweck’s argument here begins to falter when she insinuates that this standard is attainable for everyone. While she has a slight concession (“temperament certainly plays a role”), she quickly brushes it off. Dweck’s failure to account for differences in individuals with depression is unfortunate, because her ideas are otherwise very helpful to those with depression.
Although some are resistant to the idea, a growth mindset is very important for recovering from mental illness. There is a common idea among people who have never experienced mental illness, that one can just “get over it”, that they can “cure” their illnesses by thinking positively, drinking water, doing yoga… And to some critics of the growth mindset, the idea that you can change your mindset is the same as this. Dweck herself even makes it sound like this in some parts. But I believe the growth mindset is a set of skills one can employ to help themselves. It is important to take care of yourself, no matter how bad you feel- which is a controversial opinion in some circles. Some people believe that even attempting to recover from depression or help yourself, which involves real effort, is unrealistic, and portrays depression as a ‘choice’. But this also isn’t true: one doesn’t have a choice whether or not they have a mental illness or not. But they can try and take care of themselves as best as they can. Dweck just has overconfidence in how far the mindsets will take them without other forms of help.
In her section on “Mindsets and Depression”, Dweck mentions how her study on college students with depression found that those with a fixed mindset had higher levels of depression. Dweck believes that it is the fixed mindset that has caused this, writing that it “was because they ruminated over their problems and setbacks”. What Dweck fails to consider is that although the fixed mindset can certainly lead to depression, it can work the other way around as well. It did for me. I was diagnosed with depression in the 7th grade, and all my memories that have to do with the mindsets involve how I had a fixed one. Before, I was very curious, I was interested in many things, and after, I started losing all my motivation and interest in all the things I loved. I no longer wanted to try.
In my elementary and middle school, participation in the school science fair was optional for the kids in elementary school. I entered anyways and built a radio as my project, and had a lot of fun doing it too (being able to listen to static-y music on a radio I built with my own two hands was one of the most exciting things I had done up to that point). Once I got into middle school, by the time the science fair rolled around and participation was mandatory, I no longer had any desire or interest to do anything school related. I begrudgingly built some bridges out of popsicle sticks to see which model could hold the most weight, and entered it in the fair, hating every moment of it. My passion for science, along with my passion for just about everything else, had completely dissolved. Was this the depression, or was it a fixed mindset? I believe it was the former, while Dweck may argue it was the latter. Although I can’t deny the fact that I did have a fixed mindset, I believe the mindset was a consequence of depression- losing interest in the things you used to enjoy doing is a telltale symptom of the illness. Losing interest in things is not always a sign of the fixed mindset, as Dweck says- sometimes it is a sign of something much more serious.
This is not to say I did not also have the fixed mindset, even when my depression wasn’t bad. I had what Dweck calls the “Low Effort Syndrome”: scared of failure the point where I did not try, as the idea of putting in effort and still not succeeding was absolutely terrifying to me. Homer Simpson of The Simpsons once said, “Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try”. And although this is just a joke from a cartoon, this is really the way I saw the world- if I put in effort, and nothing came of it, it meant that the effort was pointless, and I was a failure. I believed that, as Dweck put it, “effort is for those who don’t have the ability”.
Another relevant Simpsons quote, this time from Marge Simpson: “Listen to your mother, kids. Aim low. Aim so low, nobody will even care if you succeed.” In 8th grade, I started at a new school, I only knew one other kid there, and I was struggling with a completely different type of coursework than at my old school. I was so scared of failing under this unfamiliar, foreign system that I purposefully set my aims a lot lower than I knew I was capable in order to insure I would “succeed”. One way I did this was by pretending I did not know certain words on a placement test for an online vocabulary website, Membean, in order to put myself at a lower level than I really was. And it worked- I got a 100% on every Membean test for the entire year. I could have used the program to challenge myself, to actually learn new words, but I wanted to keep at least one thing I knew I would be “good” at.
Dweck uses an example of the young violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg to show how detrimental this “low effort syndrome” part of the fixed mindset is- she was considered a violin prodigy, but once she started having lessons with world class violin teacher Dorothy DeLay, she became so terrified of failing that she would not try. This continued until DeLay told her she would not be her teacher anymore unless she began to put in effort. Dweck writes that, “nothing is harder than saying, ‘I gave it my all and it wasn’t good enough’”. This was one of my biggest fears. Although I was never a violin prodigy, I can still strongly relate to the idea of being scared to try because of such an paralyzing fear of failure.
Despite disagreeing with Dweck’s portrayal of how the growth mindset looks on those with depression, I still believe it is a good, possibly even essential, thing to have. Although Dweck portrays it as either/or — either you are keeping up with your life to the point that your therapist does not believe you even have depression, like the student in Dweck’s example, or you are constantly wallowing in misery and self pity, and doing nothing to help yourself. In reality, effort and determination look different on different people. For some people, the growth mindset could look like Dweck’s college student. For others, the growth mindset could mean getting up in the morning to eat breakfast for the first time in weeks, or taking showers regularly. For me, it was finally getting my driving permit.
Getting my learner’s permit was a pivotal moment for me. To me, learning to drive was the first step towards being able to live my life how I wanted to (I didn’t even plan on doing much driving- it was more about the symbolism of it all). But for some reason, I just couldn’t do it- couldn’t motivate myself to study for the test, thought I would almost certainly fail the test if I tried, that even if I did pass the permit test there’s no way I would ever pass the behind-the-wheel test… I would be a terrible driver and I would probably run someone over… and I felt like a complete loser since almost everyone my age could drive already. Even thinking maybe it was too late for me, that since driving came so naturally to some people but not to me (something I had discovered from the few times my sister attempted to teach me), I would never be able to learn. I know now that that was the fixed mindset talking- according to Dweck, “Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean others can’t do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training.”
What finally made me go get it- my permit- was the growth mindset. More specifically, Bruce Springsteen lyrics- even though I had heard this song, “Badlands”, many times before, this day was different, and these lines in particular spoke to me: “Talk about a dream, try to make it real, you wake up in the night with a fear so real, spend your life waiting for a moment that just don’t come, well don’t waste your time waiting!”. What Springsteen sings here is a main tenet of the growth mindset- the idea that if you want something, you have to go out and get it. After hearing this line, I decided I was going to try to do something to help myself- I was going to get my driver’s license. And so the next morning, I woke up at 6am, rode the bus for an hour and a half down to the closest DMV I knew did not require appointments, took the test, and passed with flying colors. My fixed mindset had made me too scared to even try to get my permit, but it was the growth mindset that made me go and get it. Later on, I heard another Springsteen quote that I felt described my situation perfectly- “You’ve got to be your own hero, find it out for yourself. I’m only the catalyst”. Springsteen knows how important his words are to people, but he also knows that it’s not his words alone that make a change- it’s the effort you put in after you hear them.
The growth mindset is invaluable. Even though Dweck portrays depression through an outsider’s lens and seems to misunderstand it, I still believe people should adopt the growth mindset- what do they have to lose? Even if they cannot cure their mental illnesses, they can still learn how to take better care of themselves. Even if they cannot solve all their problems, they can learn to have a better opinion of themselves and not view themselves as a failure whenever they get something wrong. Although I cannot say for sure that I have this growth mindset already, I am working towards it. One of Dweck’s
admirers wrote her a letter telling her how much her work had helped him, writing that he is now 49 and starting to actually apply himself after not living up to his potential. He writes that “it was painful to read your chapter … as I recognized myself therein.” I can heavily relate to this man. I am just glad I became aware of the problem at the age of 18 instead of 49. To me, switching mindsets is like getting a whole new perspective on the world. And it is leaving behind your old worldview, and entering a new one that’s a lot more promising.
“Leave your stepping stones behind now, something calls for you… forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you… the vagabond who’s rapping at your door, is standing in the clothes that you once wore… strike another match, go start anew… and it’s all over now, baby blue.” — Bob Dylan, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”
