Mindset

Carol Dweck has always been obsessed with how people cope with failure. But as a young researcher, she had an experience that changed her personal and professional life. She assigned a group of 10-year-olds a series of increasingly difficult puzzles. She found that while some children gave up, others embraced the challenge. How could someone love the possibility failure? How could that mindset motivate success? Her decades of research have yielded this astonishing book. In Mindset Dweck, now recognized as a leader in her field, reveals the driving force created by our beliefs which strongly affect what we want and whether we will get it. From over twenty years of research, she has learned how mindset profoundly affects the way we lead our lives. More remarkably, she also shows how we can change our mindset and use it to achieve success. Dweck identifies two basic mindsets: The fixed mindset - This mindset grows out of the belief that our basic qualities can never be changed. It leads to an urgency to prove ourselves over and over. Every situation calls for a confirmation of our intelligence, personality, or character – because if it isn’t good enough now, it never will be. Every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I feel like a winner or a loser? The growth mindset - This mindset grows out of the belief that our basic qualities are things we can cultivate through effort; the hand you’re dealt is just the starting point for development. Although we may differ in our initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments - we can change and grow in extraordinary ways through application and experience. Dweck shows how these mindsets unfold in adolescence and adulthood to shape achievements and relationships. She reveals how creative geniuses in all fields – music, literature, science, sports – apply the growth mindset to achieve results, and how the fixed mindset consistently breeds failure. Most important, though, she shows how we can learn to use the growth mindset at any stage of life. Revealing, intelligent, and always engaging, Mindset shows us that we each hold the key to our own success. We only need to learn how to use it.