unfamiliar—the teacher, the students, and the work. The work was what terrified me. The new class was way ahead of my old one, or at least it seemed that way to me. They were writing letters I hadn’t learned to write yet. And there was a way to do everything that everyone seemed to know except me. So when the teacher said, “Class, put your name on your paper in the right place,” I had no idea what she meant.
So I cried. Each day things came up that I didn’t know how to do. Each time, I felt lost and overwhelmed. Why didn’t I just say to the teacher, “Mrs. Kahn, I haven’t learned this yet. Could you show me how?”
Another time when I was little, my parents gave me money to go to the movies with an adult and a group of kids. As I rounded the corner to the meeting place, I looked down the block and saw them all leaving. But instead of running after them and yelling, “Wait for me!” I stood frozen, clutching the coins in my hand and watching them recede into the distance.
Why didn’t I try to stop them or catch up with them? Why did I accept defeat before I had tried some simple tactics? I know that in my dreams I had often performed magical or superhuman feats in the face of danger. I even have a picture of myself in my self-made Superman cape. Why, in real life, couldn’t I do an ordinary thing liask for help or call out for people to wait?
In my work, I see lots of young children like this—bright, seemingly resourceful children who are paralyzed by setbacks. In some of our studies, they just have to take the simplest action to make things better. But they don’t. These are the young children with the fixed mindset. When things go wrong, they feel powerless and incapable.
Even now, when something goes wrong or when something promising seems to be slipping away, I still have a passing feeling of powerlessness. Does that mean I haven’t changed?
No, it means that change isn’t like surgery. Even when you change, the old beliefs aren’t just removed like a worn-out hip or knee and replaced with better ones. Instead, the new beliefs take their place alongside the old ones, and as they become stronger, they give you a different way to think, feel, and act.
In the 1960s, psychiatrist Aaron Beck was working with his clients when he suddenly realized it was their
They weren’t beliefs people were usually conscious of. Yet Beck found he could teach people to pay attention and hear them. And then he discovered he could teach them how to work with and change these beliefs. This is how cognitive therapy was born, one of the most effective therapies ever developed.
Whether they’re aware of it or not, all people keep a running account of what’s happening to them, what it means, and what they should do. In other words, our minds are constantly monitoring and interpreting. That’s just how we stay on track. But sometimes the interpretation process goes awry. Some people put more extreme interpretations on things that happen—and then react with exaggerated feelings of anxiety, depression, or anger. Or superiority.
Mindsets frame the running account that’s taking place in people’s heads. They guide the whole interpretation process. The fixed mindset creates an internal monologue that is focused on judging: “This means I’m a loser.” “This means I’m a better person than they are.” “This means I’m a bad husband.” “This means my partner is selfish.”
In several studies, we probed the way people with a fixed mindset dealt with information they were receiving. We found that they put a very strong evaluation on each and every piece of information. Something good led to a very strong positive label and something bad led to a very strong negative label.
People with a growth mindset are also constantly monitoring what’s going on, but their internal monologue is not about judging themselves and others in this way. Certainly they’re sensitive to positive and negative information, but they’re attuned to its implications for learning and constructive action: What can I learn from this? How can I improve? How can I help my partner do this better?
Now, cognitive therapy basically teaches people to rein in their udgments and make them more reasonable. For example, suppose Alana does poorly on a test and draws the conclusion, “I’m stupid.” Cognitive therapy would teach her to look more closely at the facts by asking: What is the evidence for and against your conclusion? Alana may, after prodding, come up with a long list of ways in which she has been competent in the past, and may then confess, “I guess I’m not as incompetent as I thought.”
She may also be encouraged to think of reasons she did poorly on the test other than stupidity, and these may further temper her negative judgment. Alana is then taught how to do this for herself, so that when she judges herself negatively in the future, she can refute the judgment and feel better.
In this way, cognitive therapy helps people make more realistic and optimistic judgments.
This chapter is about changing the internal monologue from a judging one to a growth-oriented one.
Just learning about the growth mindset can cause a big shift in the way people think about themselves and their lives.
So each year in my undergraduate course, I teach about these mindsets—not only because they are part of the topic of the course but also because I know what pressure these students are under. Every year, students describe to me how these ideas have changed them in all areas of their lives.
Here is Maggie, the aspiring writer:
I recognized that when it comes to artistic or creative endeavors I had internalized a fixed mindset. I believed that people were inherently artistic or creative and that you could not improve through effort. This directly affected my life because I have always wanted to be a writer, but have been afraid to pursue any writing classes or to share my creative writing with others. This is directly related to my mindset because any negative criticism would mean that I am not a writer inherently. I was too scared to expose myself to the possibility that I might not be a “natural.”
Now after listening to your lectures, I have decided to register for a creative writing class next term. And I feel that I have really come to understand what was preventing me from pursuing an interest that has long been my secret dream. I really feel this information has empowered me!
Maggie’s internal monologue used to say:
Now it says:
And here’s Jason, the athlete:
As a student athlete at Columbia I had exclusively the fixed mindset. Winning was everything and learning did not enter the picture. However, after listening to your lectures, I realized that this is not a good mindset. I’ve been working on learning while I compete, under the realization that I can continually improve, even in matches, I will become a much better athlete.
Jason’s internal monologue used to be:
Now it’s:
And finally, here’s Tony, the recovering genius:
In high school I was able to get top grades with minimal studying and sleeping. I came to believe that it would always be so because I was naturally gifted with a superior understanding and memory. However, after about a year of sleep deprivation my understanding and memory began to not be so superior anymore. When my natural talents, which I had come to depend on almost entirely for my self-esteem (as opposed to my ability to focus, my determination or my ability to work hard), came into question, I went through a personal crisis that lasted
