Fixed Mindset Quotes

In the fixed mindset, everything is about the outcome. If you fail—or if you’re not the best—it’s all been wasted. The growth mindset allows people to value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome . They’re tackling problems, charting new courses, working on important issues. Maybe they haven’t found the cure for cancer, but the search was deeply meaningful.

After seven experiments with hundreds of children, we had some of the clearest findings I’ve ever seen: Praising children’s intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their performance. How can that be? Don’t children love to be praised? Yes, children love praise. And they especially love to be praised for their intelligence and talent. It really does give them a boost, a special glow—but only for the moment. The minute they hit a snag, their confidence goes out the window and their motivation hits rock bottom. If success means they’re smart, then failure means they’re dumb. That’s the fixed mindset.

People can have two different mindsets, she says. Those with a “fixed mindset” believe that their talents and abilities are carved in stone. Those with a “growth mindset” believe that their talents and abilities can be developed. Fixed mindsets see every encounter as a test of their worthiness. Growth mindsets see the same encounters as opportunities to improve.

Becoming is better than being.” The fixed mindset does not allow people the luxury of becoming. They have to already be.

Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over.

Many growth-minded people didn’t even plan to go to the top. They got there as a result of doing what they love. It’s ironic: The top is where the fixed-mindset people hunger to be, but it’s where many growth-minded people arrive as a by-product of their enthusiasm for what they do.

Any fool can break something, criticise someone and tear things apart. It takes a far more skilled, wise and kind soul to build something, nurture someone, fix things and help others thrive over time.

When people with the fixed mindset opt for success over growth, what are they really trying to prove? That they’re special. Even superior.

What on earth would make someone a nonlearner? Everyone is born with an intense drive to learn. Infants stretch their skills daily. Not just ordinary skills, but the most difficult tasks of a lifetime, like learning to walk and talk. They never decide it’s too hard or not worth the effort. Babies don’t worry about making mistakes or humiliating themselves. They walk, they fall, they get up. They just barge forward. What could put an end to this exuberant learning? The fixed mindset. As soon as children become able to evaluate themselves, some of them become afraid of challenges. They become afraid of not being smart. I have studied thousands of people from preschoolers on, and it’s breathtaking how many reject an opportunity to learn.

Another way people with the fixed mindset try to repair their self-esteem after a failure is by assigning blame or making excuses.

Fixed mindset leaders will quickly contaminate an organisation by killing growth and creativity, as well as promoting incompetence based on their likeness. This cycle will be replicated unless shareholders intervene ruthlessly

In the fixed mindset, setbacks label you.

A fixed mindset about ability leads to pessimistic explanations of adversity, and that, in turn, leads to both giving up on challenges and avoiding them in the first place. In contrast, a growth mindset leads to optimistic ways of explaining adversity, and that, in turn, leads to perseverance and seeking out new challenges that will ultimately make you even stronger.

The parent who praises a child’s accomplishment by saying, ‘You studied hard!’ promotes a growth mindset. The parent who says, ‘Look at your A, son! You’re a genius!’ promotes a fixed mindset.

There was a saying in the 1960s that went: “Becoming is better than being.” The fixed mindset does not allow people the luxury of becoming. They have to already be.

Actually, people with the fixed mindset expect ability to show up on its own, before any learning takes place.

Children—and adults—who have a growth mindset are much more successful than those who have a fixed mindset about themselves and the world.

Enlightenment begins when you change your mindset - from a blaming mindset to blessing mindset, from a negative mindset to positive mindset, from fixed mindset to growth mind set, from linear mindset to exponential mindset.

What allowed me to take that first step, to choose growth and risk rejection? In the fixed mindset, I had needed my blame and bitterness. It made me feel more righteous, powerful, and whole than thinking I was at fault. The growth mindset allowed me to give up the blame and move on. The growth mindset gave me a mother.

In fact, every word and action can send a message. It tells children—or students, or athletes—how to think about themselves. It can be a fixed-mindset message that says: You have permanent traits and I’m judging them. Or it can be a growth-mindset message that says: You are a developing person and I am interested in your development.

And this is part of the fixed mindset. Effort is for those who don’t have the ability.

I saw a meme the other day with a picture of Marilyn Manson and Robin Williams. It said about the former, this isn’t the face of depression, and about the latter, this is. This really struck a chord and it’s been on my mind since then. As someone who has continuously dipped in and out of chronic depression and anxiety for close to three decades now, and I’ve never previously spoken about the subject, I finally thought it was time I did. These days it’s trendy for people to think they’re cool and understanding about mental illness, posting memes and such to indicate so. But the reality is far different to that. It seems most people think if they publicly display such understanding then perhaps a friend will come to them, open up, and calmly discuss their problems. This will not happen. For someone in that seemingly hopeless void of depression and anxiety the last thing they are likely to do is acknowledge it, let alone talk about it. Even if broached by a friend they will probably deny there is a problem and feel even more distanced from the rest of the world. So nobody can do anything to help, right? No. If right now you suspect one of your friends is suffering like this then you’re probably right. If right now you think that none of your friends are suffering like this then you’re probably wrong. By all means make your public affirmations of understanding, but at least take on board that an attempt to connect on this subject by someone you care about could well be cryptic and indirect. When we hear of celebrities who suffered and finally took their own lives the message tends to be that so many close friends had no idea. This is woeful, but it’s also great, right? Because by not knowing there was a problem there is no burden of responsibility on anyone else. This is another huge misconception, that by acknowledging an indirect attempt to connect on such a complex issue that somehow you are accepting responsibility to fix it. This is not the case. You don’t have to find a solution. Maybe just listen. Many times over the years I’ve seen people recoil when they suspect that perhaps that is the direct a conversation is about to turn, and they desperately scramble for anything that can immediately change the subject. By acknowledging you’ve heard and understood doesn’t mean you are picking up their burden and carrying it for them. Anyway, I’ve said my piece. And please don’t think this is me reaching out for help. If this was my current mindset the last thing I’d ever do is write something like this, let alone share it.

When you enter a mindset, you enter a new world. In one world--the world of fixed traits--success is about proving you're smart or talented. Validating yourself. In the other--the world of changing qualities--it's about stretching yourself to learn something new. Developing yourself.

Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean that others can’t do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training. This is so important, because many, many people with the fixed mindset think that someone’s early performance tells you all you need to know about their talent and their future.

The scientific research is very clear that experiencing trauma without control can be debilitating. But I also worry about people who cruise through life, friction-free, for a long, long time before encountering their first real failure. They have so little practice falling and getting up again. They have so many reasons to stick with a fixed mindset. I see a lot of invisibly vulnerable high-achievers stumble in young adulthood and struggle to get up again. I call them the “fragile perfects.” Sometimes I meet fragile perfects in my office after a midterm or a final. Very quickly, it becomes clear that these bright and wonderful people know how to succeed but not how to fail.

the fixed-mindset premise that great geniuses do not need great teams. They just need little helpers to carry out their brilliant ideas.

Mindfulness gives freedom from negative and fixed mindset to positive and growth mindset.

Fixed mindset worries in the nest and the growth mindset dances on the edge.

Om meditation eliminates rigid and fixed views about the world. It creates a spacious, flexible and open views about the world.

We ought to relentlessly ignore excuses, especially those we are told by ourselves.

humans hate uncertainty so much that we’d rather experience punishment.

Do you want to be right or happy?

fixed mindset makes you concerned with how you’ll be judged; the growth mindset makes you concerned with improving.

As a New York Times article points out, failure has been transformed from an action (I failed) to an identity (I am a failure). This is especially true in the fixed mindset.

Entrepreneurs don’t usually fail from circumstance, they fail from what I call entrepreneurial rigidity—a fixed mindset and unwillingness to change the business model.

In fact, in the fixed mindset, adolescence is one big test. Am I smart or dumb? Am I good-looking or ugly? Am I cool or nerdy? Am I a winner or a loser? And in the fixed mindset, a loser is forever.

What's more, it's not as though the fixed mindset wants to leave gracefully. If the fixed mindset has been controlling your internal monologue, it can say some pretty strong thing to you...The fixed mindset once offered you a refuge from that very feeling, and it offers it to you again. Don't take it.

A few modern philosophers … assert that an individual’s intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism.… With practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment and literally to become more intelligent than we were before.

There were two meanings to ability, not one: a fixed ability that needs to be proven, and a changeable ability that can be developed through learning

What are the consequences of thinking that your intelligence or personality is something you can develop, as opposed to something that is a fixed, deep-seated trait?

There are now more self-storage facilities in the United States than McDonald’s, Burger Kings, Starbucks, and Walmarts—combined.

A child will pick up negative experiences as easily as positive experiences. They can even pick up our feelings and attitudes, for example, when we drop something and get frustrated with ourselves (as opposed to forgiving ourselves) or if we have a fixed mind-set that we are bad at drawing (as opposed to a growth mind-set where we might show that we can always keep improving our skills).

studies show that people are terrible at estimating their abilities. Recently, we set out to see who is most likely to do this. Sure, we found that people greatly misestimated their performance and their ability. But it was those with the fixed mindset who accounted for almost all the inaccuracy. The people with the growth mindset were amazingly accurate. When you think about it, this makes sense. If, like those with the growth mindset, you believe you can develop yourself, then you’re open to accurate information about your current abilities, even if it’s unflattering.

This low-effort syndrome is often seen as a way that adolescents assert their independence from adults, but it is also a way that students with the fixed mindset protect themselves. They view the adults as saying, “Now we will measure you and see what you’ve got.” And they are answering, “No you won’t.” John Holt, the great educator, says that these are the games all human beings play when others are sitting in judgment of them.

In this age of quick fixes and microwave mindsets, most of us want what we want, and we want it right now, whether it is instant download speed, instant riches, or an Oompa-Loompa, but just as you can’t force the farm to produce a harvest, you can’t force your seed of potential to grow until it is ripe and ready.

The true aim of personal change is to turn our minds away from miracle cures and quick fixes, and adopt a long-term strategy. Habit change isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. The right mindset is to wake up tomorrow almost exactly the same person, except for one small change—a small change that you can replicate every day until you don’t notice it anymore, at which point it’s time to plan another small change

To the fixed-mindset person, intelligence and skill are seen as a sum game. Either you can do math or you can’t. You’re artistic or you’re not. You have what it takes to sell or to be a great speaker or you don’t. Not surprisingly, Dweck found that people who have a fixed mindset are more likely to rate high on the impostor scale.

a fixed ability that needs to be proven, and a changeable ability that can be developed through learning.

the major factor in whether people achieve expertise “is not some fixed prior ability, but purposeful engagement.

If a problem repeats itself in your life – fix it. If you don’t invest time today to buy back time tomorrow the same habit will repeat forever.

Embrace short-term discomfort to find a long-term benefit.

Make no mistake, no one has ever become great by mistake.

Beware of success. It can knock you into a fixed mindset: "I won because I have talent. Therefore I will keep winning." Success can infect a team or it can infect an individual.

On the whole, people with a fixed mindset prefer effortless success, since that’s the best way to prove their talent.

However, lurking behind that self-esteem of the fixed mindset is a simple question: If you’re somebody when you’re successful, what are you when you’re unsuccessful?

As Morgan McCall, in his book High Flyers, points out, “Unfortunately, people often like the things that work against their growth.… People like to use their strengths … to achieve quick, dramatic results, even if … they aren’t developing the new skills they will need later on. People like to believe they are as good as everyone says … and not take their weaknesses as seriously as they might. People don’t like to hear bad news or get criticism.… There is tremendous risk … in leaving what one does well to attempt to master something new.” And the fixed mindset makes it seem all that much riskier.

In summary, people who believe in fixed traits feel an urgency to succeed, and when they do, they may feel more than pride. They may feel a sense of superiority, since success means that their fixed traits are better than other people’s. However, lurking behind that self-esteem of the fixed mindset is a simple question: If you’re somebody when you’re successful, what are you when you’re unsuccessful?

Ironically, it is therefore often the highly gifted and talented students, who receive a lot of praise, who are more in danger of developing a fixed mindset and getting stuck. Having been praised for what they are (talented and gifted) rather than for what they do, they tend to focus on keeping this impression intact, rather than exposing themselves to new challenges and the possibility of learning from failure.

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.

Like my sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Wilson, these teachers preached and practiced the fixed mindset. In their classrooms, the students who started the year in the high-ability group ended the year there, and those who started the year in the low-ability group ended the year there. But some teachers preached and practiced a growth mindset. They focused on the idea that all children could develop their skills, and in their classrooms a weird thing happened. It didn’t matter whether students started the year in the high- or the low-ability group. Both groups ended the year way up high. It’s a powerful experience to see these findings.

So in the fixed mindset, both positive and negative labels can mess with your mind. When you’re given a positive label, you’re afraid of losing it, and when you’re hit with a negative label, you’re afraid of deserving it.

If you keep experiencing the same things, your mind keeps its same patterns. Same inputs, same responses. Your brain, which was once curious and growing, gets fixed into deep habits. Your values and opinions harden and resist change. You really learn only when you’re surprised. If you’re not surprised, then everything is fitting into your existing thought patterns. So to get smarter, you need to get surprised, think in new ways, and deeply understand different perspectives. With effort, you could do this from the comfort of home. But the most effective way to shake things up is to move across the world. Pick a place that’s most unlike what you know, and go. This keeps you in a learning mindset. Previously mindless habits, like buying groceries, now keep your mind open, alert, and noticing new things. New arrivals in a culture often notice what the locals don’t. (Fish don’t know they’re in water.)

Praise is closely connected to how kids view their intelligence. If they are constantly praised for being naturally smart, talented, or gifted (sound familiar?), they develop what is called a “fixed” mind-set (their intelligence is fixed and they have it).

The idea that one evaluation can measure you forever is what creates the urgency for those with the fixed mindset. That’s why they must succeed perfectly and immediately. Who can afford the luxury of trying to grow when everything is on the line right now?

It turns out that even believing you are smart—one of the fixed mindset messages—is damaging, as students with this fixed mindset are less willing to try more challenging work or subjects because they are afraid of slipping up and no longer being seen as smart.

The fixed mindset limits achievement. It fills people’s minds with interfering thoughts, it makes effort disagreeable, and it leads to inferior learning strategies. What’s more, it makes other people into judges instead of allies. Whether we’re talking about Darwin or college students, important achievements require a clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies. Plus allies in learning. This is what the growth mindset gives people, and that’s why it helps their abilities grow and bear fruit.

When you enter a mindset, you enter a new world. In one world—the world of fixed traits—success is about proving you’re smart or talented. Validating yourself. In the other—the world of changing qualities—it’s about stretching yourself to learn something new. Developing yourself.

Ethan’s parents constantly told him how brainy he was. “You’re so smart! You can do anything, Ethan. We are so proud of you, they would say every time he sailed through a math test. Or a spelling test. Or any test. With the best of intentions, they consistently tethered Ethan’s accomplishment to some innate characteristic of his intellectual prowess. Researchers call this “appealing to fixed mindsets.” The parents had no idea that this form of praise was toxic. 　　Little Ethan quickly learned that any academic achievement that required no effort was the behavior that defined his gift. When he hit junior high school, he ran into subjects that did require effort. He could no longer sail through, and, for the first time, he started making mistakes. But he did not see these errors as opportunities for improvement. After all, he was smart because he could mysteriously grasp things quickly. And if he could no longer grasp things quickly, what did that imply? That he was no longer smart. Since he didn’t know the ingredients making him successful, he didn’t know what to do when he failed. You don’t have to hit that brick wall very often before you get discouraged, then depressed. Quite simply, Ethan quit trying. His grades collapsed. What happens when you say, ‘You’re so smart’ 　　Research shows that Ethan’s unfortunate story is typical of kids regularly praised for some fixed characteristic. If you praise your child this way, three things are statistically likely to happen: 　　First, your child will begin to perceive mistakes as failures. Because you told her that success was due to some static ability over which she had no control, she will start to think of failure (such as a bad grade) as a static thing, too—now perceived as a lack of ability. Successes are thought of as gifts rather than the governable product of effort. 　　Second, perhaps as a reaction to the first, she will become more concerned with looking smart than with actually learning something. (Though Ethan was intelligent, he was more preoccupied with breezing through and appearing smart to the people who mattered to him. He developed little regard for learning.) 　　Third, she will be less willing to confront the reasons behind any deficiencies, less willing to make an effort. Such kids have a difficult time admitting errors. There is simply too much at stake for failure. 　　  　　What to say instead: ‘You really worked hard’ 　　What should Ethan’s parents have done? Research shows a simple solution. Rather than praising him for being smart, they should have praised him for working hard. On the successful completion of a test, they should not have said,“I’m so proud of you. You’re so smart. They should have said, “I’m so proud of you. You must have really studied hard”. This appeals to controllable effort rather than to unchangeable talent. It’s called “growth mindset” praise.

And this affects us. Consider, immediately after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, researchers from the University of California, Irvine, investigated two groups. The first group was made up of people who watched six or more hours of televised bombing coverage. The second group was people who actually ran in the 2013 Boston Marathon. The finding: The first group, the bombing news bingers, were more likely to develop PTSD and other mental health issues. That’s worth restating: people who binge-watched bombing news on TV from the comfort of home had more psychological trauma than people who were actually bombed.

...in the fixed mindset, you don’t take control of your abilities and your motivation. You look for your talent to carry you through, and when it doesn’t, well then, what else could you have done? You are not a work in progress, you’re a finished product. And finished products have to protect themselves, lament, and blame. Everything but take charge.

You can't lead an empowered life with a defeated mindset. Work on the mindset first. Fix the inside before you try to fix the outside. Change always begins within.

When you have a fixed-mindset, then you see your brain as if it's a machine. When you have a growth-mindset, then you understand your brain as if it's a growing tree.

Suddenly we realized that there were two meanings to ability, not one: a fixed ability that needs to be proven, and a changeable ability that can be developed through learning.

fixed ability that needs to be proven, and a changeable ability that can be developed through learning. That

There's a thin line between post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth.

Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character—well, then you’d better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. It simply wouldn’t do to look or feel deficient in these most basic characteristics.

Remember how hard it is for people with the fixed mindset to forgive? Part of it is that they feel branded by a rejection or breakup. But another part is that if they forgive the partner, if they see him or her as a decent person, then they have to shoulder more of the blame themselves: If my partner’s a good guy, then I must be a bad guy. I must be the person who was at fault.

For a Truth to be a Truth it must be moving. In other words, our understanding of this ‘Truth’ expanding and widening with our own personal experiences and philosophizing. A Truth cannot be a fixed definition. For once it is enshrined in that definition, it’s static―the mind is closed. It then becomes indoctrination, a mindset and a belief: the cause of separation and even wars.

The worst habits are things we can do over and over and over in rapid succession—eventually to our detriment. These behaviors are often fun and rewarding in the short term but backfire in the long run.

As the Las Vegas strip came into sight through my car's windshield, I remembered the words that unnamed monk wrote in the 19th century. You risk so much by hesitating to fling yourself into the abyss.

In the human brain less equals bad, worse, unproductive. More equals good, better, productive. Our scarcity brain defaults to more and rarely considers less. And when we do consider less, we often think it sucks.

Imagine that you start with the assumption that we live in a world of limited possibilities. You have a fixed mindset, a belief you cannot change. You’re limiting yourself. Nothing you do ultimately matters. You will never be good enough. If you begin with that scarcity mindset, why even get out of bed? Life would feel pointless. Nothing you do would matter. Life would be gray and empty. Many depressed people have a scarcity mindset, believing nothing matters and the world is one of limited possibilities. Now, imagine you believe that the world is abundant. The world is one of endless resources and unlimited potential. What you do matters. Your choices matter. You matter. Each day is a new day full of infinite possibilities. How would you act if you knew that anything you wanted to do was possible? Would you live differently if you believed that you were abundant and full of potential? Why

Skills you dislike are often a fertile hunting ground for fixed mindsets that are still hiding and could possibly be challenged. What are some ways you could potentially pursue the disliked skill that would utilize your core strengths and interests? You don’t have to commit to doing anything; this is just a thought exercise. For example, someone who is into chemistry but not into cooking could start thinking about the chemistry aspects of cooking.

Just because there’s no one living on a planet does not mean it’s yours for the taking. Do you not see how dangerous that mindset is? Do you not think that treating the galaxy as if it is something to be endlessly used will always, always end in tragedy? You think you’ve broken the cycle. You haven’t. You’re in a less violent period of the exact same cycle, and you don’t see it. And the line of what you find to be justifiable cause is going to keep slipping and slipping until you end up right back where you started. You haven’t fixed anything. You put a stamp and a permit and a shiny coat of paint on an idea that has been fundamentally damaged from day one. You engaged in bloody theft and you called it progress, and no matter how much better you think you’ve made things, no matter how good your intentions are, that will always be the root of the GC. You cannot divorce any of what you do from that. Ever.

If you ask me, too many men have a fixed mindset about sex. They believe they're pretty much born instinctively knowing everything they need to know, and if they have to seek any kind of outside knowledge, that's somehow a form of failure. I never bought into that. I fumbled through things when I was a teenager like everyone else, but once I grew up, I wanted to really learn how to do it right. So I did what I'd do for anything else - I took lessons from an expert.

The behaviors we do in rapid succession—from gambling to overeating to overbuying to binge-watching to binge drinking and so much more—are powered by a “scarcity loop.” It has three parts. Opportunity—> Unpredictable Rewards—> Quick Repeatability

I no longer believe that character formation is mostly an individual task, or is achieved on a person-by-person basis. I no longer believe that character building is like going to the gym: You do your exercises and you build up your honesty, courage, integrity, and grit. I now think good character is a by-product of giving yourself away. You love things that are worthy of love. You surrender to a community or cause, make promises to other people, build a thick jungle of loving attachments, lose yourself in the daily act of serving others as they lose themselves in the daily acts of serving you. Character is a good thing to have, and there’s a lot to be learned on the road to character. But there’s a better thing to have—moral joy. And that serenity arrives as you come closer to embodying perfect love. Furthermore, I no longer believe that the cultural and moral structures of our society are fine, and all we have to do is fix ourselves individually. Over the past few years, as a result of personal, national, and global events, I have become radicalized. I now think the rampant individualism of our current culture is a catastrophe. The emphasis on self—individual success, self-fulfillment, individual freedom, self-actualization—is a catastrophe. I now think that living a good life requires a much vaster transformation. It’s not enough to work on your own weaknesses. The whole cultural paradigm has to shift from the mindset of hyper-individualism to the relational mindset of the second mountain.

A scarcity cue is a piece of information that fires on what researchers call our scarcity mindset. It leads us to believe we don’t have enough. We then instinctually fixate on attaining or doing that one thing we think will solve our problem and make us feel whole.

Many growth-minded people didn't even plan to go to the top They got there as a result of doing what they love. It's ironic: The top is where the fixed-mindset people hunger to be, but it's where many growth-minded people arrive as a by-product of their enthusiasm for what they do.

When you enter a mindset, you enter a new world. In one world—the world of fixed traits—success is about proving you’re smart or talented. Validating yourself. In the other—the world of changing qualities—it’s about stretching yourself to learn something new. Developing yourself. In

It can take forever for a willing underachieving to reverse his underachievement and become an achiever. There are about a handful of reasons for this. His empowerment needs for which he needs help with, his basic needs according to his age, his mental language and skills he must master typically slows down the process of reversal.

Most things that are true are simple. To lose weight, eat less than you burn. To reduce stress, find a job you love. To resolve conflict, be patient and peaceful. These are very, very simple in that they are complete concepts that take no more than a sentence to say. They are not, however, easy, because they must be applied consistently.

All underachieving persons need help. All. No underachieving adult or child can reverse his underachievement by himself. With resilience and an inner locus of control, an underachiever can try though, but it wouldn't be as effective as getting help. Without help, an underachieving person would literally get little results compared to the effort put in.

These are the three false assumptions of the monkey mind-set. As long as I am certain, as long as I am perfect, and as long as others are okay I will be safe, able to relax, and happy. Each of these assumptions overestimates the threat and underestimates our ability to cope. Each of them treats the perception of threat as accurate, a problem to be fixed.

In a longitudinal study of college students, freshmen were evaluated for fixed mindsets or growth mindsets and then followed across their four years of enrollment. When the students with fixed mindsets encountered academic challenges such as daunting projects or low grades, they gave up, while the students with growth mindsets responded by working harder or trying new strategies. Rather than strengthening their skills and toughening their resolve, four years of college left the students with fixed mindsets feeling less confident. The feelings they most associated with school were distress, shame, and upset. Those with growth mindsets performed better in school overall and, at graduation time, they reported feeling confident, determined, enthusiastic, inspired, and strong.

There's a difference between loneliness and solitude, and they're often conflated," said Bishop. "Solitude is purposeful and intentional." The famed English psychologist Anthony Storr wrote of solitude, "Some of the most profound and healing psychological experiences which individuals encounter take place internally and they're only distantly related, if at all, to interaction with other human beings.

The true aim of personal change is to turn our minds away from miracle cures and quick fixes, and adopt a long-term strategy. Habit change isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. The right mindset is to wake up tomorrow almost exactly the same person, except for one small change—a small change that you can replicate every day until you don’t notice it anymore, at which point it’s time to plan another small change . . .

The fixed- and growth-mindset groups started with the same ability, but as time went on the growth-mindset groups clearly outperformed the fixed-mindset ones. And this difference became ever larger the longer the groups worked. Once again, those with the growth mindset profited from their mistakes and feedback far more than the fixed-mindset people. But what was even more interesting was how the groups functioned. The members of the growth-mindset groups were much more likely to state their honest opinions and openly express their disagreements as they communicated about their management decisions. Everyone was part of the learning process. For the fixed-mindset groups—with their concern about who was smart or dumb or their anxiety about disapproval for their ideas—that open, productive discussion did not happen. Instead, it was more like groupthink.

Dweck’s work with children revealed two mindsets in action—a “growth” mindset that generally thinks big and seeks growth and a “fixed” mindset that places artificial limits and avoids failure. Growth-minded students, as she calls them, employ better learning strategies, experience less helplessness, exhibit more positive effort, and achieve more in the classroom than their fixed-minded peers. They are less likely to place limits on their lives and more likely to reach for their potential. Dweck points out that mindsets can and do change. Like any other habit, you set your mind to it until the right mindset becomes routine.

Replace Negative Character Labels Negative character labels are an even more serious problem than fixed mindsets. Examples of negative character labels include “I’m selfish,” “I’m needy,” “I’m unlovable,” “I’m weak,” “I’m defective,” “I’m incompetent,” and “I’m worthless.” Such an uplifting list! Those negative beliefs sound quite dramatic when written down on the page, and sometimes people don’t realize that they hold those beliefs about themselves. If your immediate reaction is to say, “Oh, I don’t think any of those things about myself” or “Only someone who was super depressed would think those things,” then take an extra second to make sure you’re not even partially buying into these types of thoughts about yourself. It might be that you believe a negative character label only 20% of the time, but even that can still be an issue. There are two types of negative character labels. Both can be changed. One type is very stable. For example, you believe you are incompetent, and you have never believed anything else, not even when you are in a positive mood. The other type is the type that goes up and down with your mood, anxiety, and stress. When your mood is low, you believe the negative character label much more strongly than when your mood is positive. If your negative character label changes due to transient things like your mood, anxiety, or stress, this can help you start to see that the belief is a product of these things rather than true.