Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

After Brainology, I now have a new look at things. Now, my attitude towards the subjects I have trouble in [is] I try harder to study and master the skills.… been using my time more wisely, studying everyday and reviewing the notes that I took on that day. I am really glad that I joined this program because it increased my intelligence about the brain.

I did change my mind about how the brain works and i do things differently. I will try harder because i know that the more you try the more your brain works.

ALL i can say is that Brainology changed my grades. Bon Voyage!

The Brainology program kind of made me change the way i work and study and practice for school work now that i know how my brain works and what happens when i learn.

Thank you for making us study more and helping us build up our brain! I actually picture my neurons growing bigger as they make more connections.

Teachers told us how formerly turned-off students were now talking the Brainology talk. For example, they were taught that when they studied well and learned something, they transferred it from temporary storage (working memory) to more permanent storage (long-term memory). Now they were saying to each other: “I’ll have to put that into my long-term memory.” “Sorry, that stuff is not in my long-term memory.” “I guess I was only using my working memory.”

Teachers said that students were also offering to practice, study, take notes, or pay attention more to make sure that neural connections would be made. As one student said:

“Yes the [B]rainology program helped a lot.… Every time I thought about not doing work I remembered that my neurons could grow if I did do the work.”

The teachers also changed. Not only did they say great things about how their students benefited, they also said great things about the insights they themselves had gained. In particular, they said Brainology was essential for understanding:

“That all students can learn, even the ones who struggle with math and with self- control.”

“That I have to be more patient because learning takes a great deal of time and practice.”

“How the brain works.… Each learner learns differently. Brainology assisted me in teaching for various learning styles.”

Our workshop went to children in twenty schools. Some children admitted to being skeptical at first: “i used to think it was just free time and a good cartoon but i started listening to it and i started doing what they told me to do.” In the end, just about every child reported meaningful benefits.

MORE ABOUT CHANGE

Is change easy or hard? So far it sounds easy. Simply learning about the growth mindset seems to mobilize people for meeting challenges and persevering.

The other day one of my former grad students told me a story. But first some background. In my field, when you submit a research paper for publication, that paper often represents years of work. Some months later you receive your reviews: ten or so pages of criticism—single-spaced. If the editor still thinks the paper has potential, you will be invited to revise it and resubmit it provided you can address every criticism.

My student reminded me of the time she had sent her thesissearch to the top journal in our field. When the reviews came back, she was devastated. She had been judged—the work was flawed and, by extension, so was she. Time passed, but she couldn’t bring herself to go near the reviews again or work on the paper.

Then I told her to change her mindset. “Look,” I said, “it’s not about you. That’s their job. Their job is to find every possible flaw. Your job is to learn from the critique and make your paper even better.” Within hours she was revising her paper, which was warmly accepted. She tells me: “I never felt judged again. Never. Every time I get that critique, I tell myself, ‘Oh, that’s their job,’ and I get to work immediately on my job.”

But change is also hard.

When people hold on to a fixed mindset, it’s often for a reason. At some point in their lives it served a good purpose for them. It told them who they were or who they wanted to be (a smart, talented child) and it told them how to be that (perform well). In this way, it provided a formula for self-esteem and a path to love and respect from others.

The idea that they are worthy and will be loved is crucial for children, and—if a child is unsure about being valued or loved—the fixed mindset appears to offer a simple, straightforward route to this.

Psychologists Karen Horney and Carl Rogers, working in the mid-1900s, both proposed theories of children’s emotional development. They believed that when young children feel insecure about being accepted by their parents, they experience great anxiety. They feel lost and alone in a complicated world. Since they’re only a few years old, they can’t simply reject their parents and say, “I think I’ll go it alone.” They have to find a way to feel safe and to win their parents over.

Both Horney and Rogers proposed that children do this by creating or imagining other “selves,” ones that their parents might like better. These new selves are what they think the parents are looking for and what may win them the parents’ acceptance.

Often, these steps are good adjustments to the family situation at the time, bringing the child some security and hope.

The problem is that this new self—this all-competent, strong, good self that they now try to be—is likely to be a fixed-mindset self. Over time, the fixed traits may come to be the person’s sense of who they are, and validating these traits may come to be the main source of their self-esteem.

Mindset change asks people to give this up. As you can imagine, it’s not easy to just let go of something that has felt like your “self” for many years and that has given you your route to self-esteem. And it’s especially not easy to replace it with a mindset that tells you to embrace all the things that have felt threatening: challenge, struggle, criticism, setbacks.

When I was exchanging my fixed mindset for a growth one, I was acutely aware of how unsettled I felt. For example, I’ve told you how as a fixed mindsetter, I kept track each day of all my successes. At the end of a good day, I could look at the results (the high numbers on my intelligence “counter,” my personality “counter,” and so on) and feel good about myself. But as I adopted a growth mindset and stopped keeping track, some nights I would still check my mental counters and find them at zero. It made me insecure not to be able to tote up my victories.

Even worse, since I was taking more risks, I might look back over the day and ee all the mistakes and setbacks. And feel miserable.

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 things to you when it sees those counters at zero: “You’re nothing.” It can make you want to rush right out and rack up some high numbers. The fixed mindset once offered you refuge from that very feeling, and it offers it to you again.

Don’t take it.

Then there’s the concern that you won’t be yourself anymore. It may feel as though the fixed mindset gave you your ambition, your edge, your individuality. Maybe you fear you’ll become a bland cog in the wheel just like everyone else. Ordinary.

But opening yourself up to growth makes you more yourself, not less. The growth- oriented scientists, artists, athletes, and CEOs we’ve looked at were far from humanoids going through the motions. They were people in the full flower of their individuality and potency.

TAKING THE FIRST STEP

The rest of the book is pretty much about you. It’s a mindset exercise in which I ask you to venture with me into a series of dilemmas. In each case, you’ll first see the fixed-mindset reactions, and then work through to a growth-mindset solution.

The First Dilemma. Imagine you’ve applied to graduate school. You applied to just one place because it was the school you had your heart set on. And you were confident you’d be accepted since many people considered your work in your field to be original and exciting. But you were