Growth Mindset

Before now I had not heard of Carol Dweck or her work on growth mindset, however I am a little familiar with some of the concepts in growth mindset. I took an introductory psychology course a while ago, and I remember reading some articles for a class discussion relating to this sort of behavior and how kids are easily influenced by how their parents reward certain behaviors, such as earning good grades, or reinforcing their approaches to school and learning which could have positive or negative effects later in life with how they react to failure or challenges.

Personally, up until college I sort of "breezed" through school. I earned As and Bs by essentially doing what felt like nothing and I often had no homework because I finished it all in class. My parents just told me I was smart and they were proud, which felt good at the time. However, as soon as I started college, I often had more homework than I could manage effectively; I mean, I would stay up late into the night to finish assignments, I lacked effective time management, etc. Ultimately because I didn't strive for more when I was younger, I lacked skills I would need to succeed while earning my degree. When I noticed I really started to struggle with my courses' homework and time requirements, I knew I needed to make a change because it started to affect my mood from day to day as well as my grades. Until College, I had never failed a test, and it was incredibly demoralizing to do so when I had done so well before. I also was used to not studying because the topics we covered in class were to incredibly easy I never needed to work outside of class to understand. I was constantly stressed out about whether I had homework, so I'd do a mental check maybe 100 times a day just to keep reaffirming I had my day planned out - it was sort of like an obsession. If I didn't have homework, and instead had free time, my day felt off and I couldn't enjoy my time to myself.

So, I started to make changes to how I approached my education. The next semester, I took fewer hours to help with the load, and I also talked more with my professors during office hours (something I hadn't even utilized until my junior year). I made more friends, formed study groups, etc. and I changed how I thought about difficult topics. I study mathematics, and the higher you go the more different it feels from the previous year. Abstract concepts are difficult to master, even for someone who's spent years studying them. So, I learned that I should always strive to learn the material, but that it was okay to not understand it at first and that it takes time to do so. Time and practice are the two key resources for learning in mathematics courses, and I'm sure they're also key for other subjects as well. Here's a handy infographic with some thoughts on how to think in a growth mindset I found online that I think outlines some great tips:

Growth mindset infographic. Image source: