How Your Mindset Impacts Your Writing
For writing success prepare to challenge the fixed mindset
Have you ever thought about your evolution as a writer and whether you are operating from growth or fixed mindset?
Psychologist Carol Dweck researches and writes about mindset, specifically the fixed and growth mindsets, and I only just put together how these impact us as writers. You see, in a fixed mindset, you gravitate to easy, or what comes “naturally”. Which means we find the topics that are easiest for us to write about. Which is fine, you can write a lot about what is easy, but do you really grow your skills if you’re always doing the easiest type of writing?
Recently I applied to write for a new subject area — the history of women. The topic excites me, I’m a history buff and have thought for a long time that women and their place in history are underrepresented. But then a funny thing happened, after the initial research, I got stuck.
I’ve been working on the same piece of writing for 2 weeks. It’s not writer’s block per se, but rather a combination of over-the-top passion for the subject, a desire to do the story justice, and lastly a desire to ensure that it’s what the new publication I was accepted to write for wants.
