Do You Have A Growth Mindset About Your Own Intelligence?

Possessing a growth mindset about yourself means believing that everything about you can be changed, grown, improved and developed - your intelligence, skills, personality, social skills, abilities in sports, musics, languages, etc. Carol Dweck, a Stanford University Professor has dedicated the last 30 years to researching this concept and findings show that it is a strong predictor of our achievements.

The reason for this is that believing in your ability to `grow` yourself means recognising that what you are born with is just the starting point, and that what will actually determine your success in life is hard work, effort, perseverance, commitment, taking on challenge, reflecting on feedback, learning from mistakes, grit, trying new strategies and more hard work. People who have a growth mindset naturally take on these behaviours, whereas those with a `fixed mindset` (believing that their abilities, talents, intelligence, personality is determined by their innate capabilities, i.e. what they are born with), tend to give up with things get hard, not recognise that effort is needed (because they think they should be able to just do it naturally), work less hard, and not take on board feedback, seeing it as criticism. Therefore, possessing a fixed mindset, and the associated behaviours certainly is not a recipe for success.

So do you think you have a growth or a fixed mindset? Some people naturally have a growth mindset, because of the messages they have received growing up, and the behaviours that were nurtured within them. BUT - if you have a fixed mindset, you can still change!! (and committing to doing this is already showing a growth mindset in your beliefs that you CAN change). Importantly, it is just a belief.... so of course you can change it. But you have to believe in it.... and here`s why you should. Research shows us very clearly that our brain is more malleable and changes more than we ever thought. Every single time you learn something new, your brain makes new, stronger neural connections. I.E. after one of my tutoring sessions, your brain should look physically different to how it looked when you began. (how cool is that?). So therein lies the evidence why it makes no sense at all to have a fixed mindset..... if your brain is constantly changing in response to your environment and your learning, then how does it make sense to believe "that what you are born with is all that you are capable of". If our brain is continually growing, changing and making new connections, then we can learn anything! If something is hard... keep trying because we need to test and challenge our brain so that it will grow and our knowledge and understanding will grow! We must all believe in our ability to grow, develop and improve and then work hard to do so. If you are struggling and feel that you can`t do it, then just add the word "yet" onto the end of your sentence... It`s not that you can`t do it... it`s just that you can`t do it YET! So ask for help, keep trying, get some feedback, try a different approach or strategy and keep working hard for it and you will get there.

Having a growth mindset is the key to our success... not just in our academic achievements but to all aspects of our life.