Mindsets are mental frameworks for understanding and interacting with the world. In youth they’re largely inherited and unconscious, but as you mature you can take greater control of them. You can improve your mental frameworks with the right tools and effort.
Below is a list of the fundamental beliefs of the fixed and growth mindsets. In short, a fixed mindset is stifling, short-term, and fatalistic. While a growth mindset is just the opposite, and has been proven to do what its name implies—help people grow and thrive.
Unfortunately, many of us are inclined, by nature and nurture, to the former. To remedy this we should become more conscious of our internal narratives and those we take in from our surroundings.
It’s important to be able to identify the fixed mindset (in thought, speech, and action) and replace it with the healthier growth mindset alternative. As you do so, remember to be kind, and don’t expect perfection; there will always be fixed-mindset forces to contend with. Cultivating a growth mindset is a lifelong task,
one you should undertake on behalf of yourself and those who can’t help but learn from the way you approach challenge, define success, react to failure, and prioritize learning in your life.
Beliefs of a fixed mindset:
1. My intelligence and other personal qualities are innate and unchangeable.
2. High effort signals a lack of ability. If you have to work hard, you can’t be that talented.
3. Challenging tasks threaten my self-image. I can’t risk doing things that make me look bad, so I stick to tasks that come easily and win praise.
4. I judge myself based on how I measure up to others. Success is about proving I’m smart, talented, gifted, or special; it’s about validating my superior qualities. I rely on the valuations of others for this measurement, and (to a large extent) for my sense of worth.
5. Mistakes reflect poorly on me personally, and will overwrite past successes. Since failure means I lack certain fixed qualities, I have little recourse to cope with or overcome it, and will often blame other people or circumstances (or find other ways to repair my self-esteem).
I would rather withhold effort and preserve an image of superiority than try hard, fail, and expose a lack of ability.
6. Everything is about the outcome. If I can get the outcome I want (or others want from me) with minimal effort, then I will. Afterward, there’s no reason to keep working.
Since how I perform now is evidence of how I’ll always perform (and how I should feel about myself), I’m desperate for a favorable result in the short-term. It’s less important if I forego genuine understanding, if I don’t enjoy the process, if I’m not interested or learning anything about myself, if I have to bend the rules or cheat, if I’m cultivating bad habits—as long as I’m “winning” the game (or otherwise preserving an image of superiority).
7. Criticism is a personal indictment of my ability; it arouses resistance and defensiveness. Asking for help is an admission of weakness and hurts my pride.
8. Good friends and partners are those who inflate my self-worth and help hide my deficiencies. I tend to idealize others (as I would have them idealize me). The personal qualities of others are innate and unchangeable. Successful relationships come naturally; if they demand significant work, they weren’t meant to be.
9. The achievements of others often make me feel inferior, resentful, or envious. I assume their success was effortless and their natural ability superior to mine. (This contributes to the feeling of being an impostor when I am successful, as I cannot live up to such a standard.) Success is a zero-sum game: if your achievements make you look better, I look worse (and vice versa); this tends to make me adversarial and selfish.
10. Stress is a debilitating experience. It is a signal of my impending failure; if I were more talented or skilled, I wouldn’t be stressed. (This makes experiencing stress something that is, itself, stressful.)
Stress is something to avoid or fight against.
11. When explaining negative events I use language that’s permanent (e.g. “always”, “never”), global (projecting effects across many situations), personal (implicating my identity or character), and catastrophic (dwelling on the worst case). The effects of negative events are largely fixed and unaffected by my beliefs and interpretations, so there’s little use in changing my self-talk or explanatory style.
12. I know my potential. I know what I’m capable of and what is beyond me. I won’t take on new or ambitious projects that are outside my range of ability.
13. The most important and defining influence on my life is the hand I was dealt.
Beliefs of a growth mindset:
1. My intelligence and other personal qualities can be improved.
2. High effort is the way to cultivate ability. Innate talent is just a starting point.
3. Challenging tasks strengthen my self-image. I prefer tasks that require learning new things, even though they may take time and be frustrating. It is struggling with difficult things that makes growth possible.
4. Success is about pushing my limits and developing my abilities. I rely on personal standards of hard work, reliable habits, and incremental growth for my sense of worth. My talents, interests, ambitions, and life circumstances are unique; comparing myself to others is unlikely to help me achieve my authentic potential.
5. Mistakes are problems to be addressed and learned from. Failure isn’t a negative result as long as it can help me improve. I try to accurately assess my responsibility for failures, as well as identify factors that are out of my control. If I’m at fault, I can accept it (and still feel good about myself) knowing I can correct my behavior with deliberate effort.
6. Growth over time matters more than any single outcome. (Outcomes are still important as they inform my ongoing efforts.) If I’ve prepared for a challenge the best I can, and don’t let results (good or bad) put an end to my learning, I’ve done well.
Since where I am now isn’t necessarily where I’ll end up,
I take a long view. It’s important that I develop genuine understanding, that I’m interested and cultivating self-knowledge, that I don’t violate my integrity, that I’m practicing healthy habits of mind and body. (It’s adherence to these values that also influences how I feel about myself.) I would rather continue playing the game, while getting better and enjoying the process, than “win” the game.
(The “game” is never really over, anyway.)
7. Criticism is welcome feedback about my current abilities; it arouses my interest and (when given in good faith) my gratitude. I will seek out help in order to understand why I didn’t perform well.
8. Good friends and partners are those who, while accepting my present qualities,
challenge me to grow, and help me maintain a realistic self-image. I try not to idealize others; no one is perfect, and everyone struggles with similar human difficulties at one time or another. This admission reveals possibilities for genuine growth, and improves my sense of compassion and empathy. The personal qualities of others can be improved. Healthy relationships require thoughtful, consistent effort.
9. The achievements of others inspire me and are a resource to learn from. I assume their success was preceded by long, hard work and temporary setbacks. Success is not a zero-sum game; everyone benefits when someone grows and improves their competence; this tends to make me cooperative and generous.
10. Stress is not inherently bad. It’s a natural response to challenge that can enhance my focus and performance. I have effective ways of leveraging stress, removing needless stress, and shutting off my stress response when it’s no longer helpful.
If I avoid stressful situations whenever possible, I will likely miss out on significant opportunities for growth.
11. When explaining negative events I use language that’s temporary (e.g. “sometimes”, “lately”), specific (limiting effects to the relevant situation), impersonal (implicating my actions not my identity), and realistic (refraining from exaggeration). The effects of negative events have a lot to do with how I interpret them and the actions I take to improve, so I try to catch my impulsive, negative self-talk and make corrections.
12. My potential is largely unknown and unknowable. Who knows what I can achieve with enough time and dedication?
I will take on novel projects with the (reasonable) expectation that I’ll rise to the challenge and learn along the way.
13. The most important and defining influence on my life is how I play the hand I was dealt.
We all have core beliefs or assumptions about things like intelligence, success, failure, challenge, stress—and education. These beliefs don’t necessarily reflect reality as it objectively is. They are simplified frameworks we inherit from our upbringing and culture.
For decades, researchers have studied how these assumptions shape our expectations, explanations, and motivations—how they can limit what we believe we are capable of. Researchers have also studied how we can change these mindsets, how we can begin to question the assumptions that do not serve us and adapt them to improve our lives.
Here are some exercises you can do to help reinforce a growth mindset:
1. First, identify yourself as someone who can implement a growth mindset. Embrace the challenge of improving the way you embrace challenge.
2. Review the beliefs of a fixed mindset above, and think of a time in your life when you held one of these views. Now read the corresponding growth mindset belief and consider how it could have changed your thoughts or actions. Imagine yourself using a growth mindset to achieve a more personal, long-term, genuine success.
3. Consider something you’re good at. How much of this ability came naturally and how much was the result of prolonged effort? Were you encouraged by others when you were starting out? When you experienced difficulty, how did you respond?
How do you define “being good”? Is it a measurement against others, or an internal assessment of personal standards?
How much of your identity is tied up with this skill? Do you challenge yourself to improve to the degree you would like? Are there challenges you avoid for fear of losing the label “good”?
4. Consider something you’re bad at. Was it something you really applied yourself to, or did you experience an early failure that ended your effort? Were you labeled or judged in a way that discouraged your effort (or convinced you that your low ability was a fixed quality)?
5. Consider how you encourage, support, or affirm others. Do you praise ability in a way that suggests it is innate or fixed, or do you praise effort in a way that encourages growth through challenge? Do you demand outcomes without regard for effort, good habits, healthy character, or genuine improvement?
Do you, through reward and punishment, create environments where looking good is more important than getting better, where the struggle of embracing a challenge can’t be risked, where negative results are stigmatized or intolerable?
Are your standards for the success of others based on competition, a sense of externally validated superiority, or are your standards more holistic and personal, appropriate for the authentic, long-term growth of the individual?
6. As you practice a skill, collect and appreciate evidence of your growth over time. (This is also a pillar of effective habit formation.) When you can, quantify your progress, in increments that are neither too small to be meaningful nor too large to provide steady motivation.
And as you begin to recognize fixed mindset beliefs and correct them, acknowledge and celebrate these small achievements.
A growth mindset implies much more than the belief that your personal qualities can improve through effort. The mindset bolsters your character in many meaningful ways.
You face difficulty with the confidence that the struggle itself will make you stronger. You embrace challenges without the fear (or arrogance) that outcomes render some permanent judgment of your ability, potential, or self-worth.
You are kinder to yourself and others when you or they experience negative results. You don’t apply constraining labels or attack character; you investigate opportunities to improve actions and thoughts. Because you focus on improving, and don’t take outcomes personally, you can hold yourself and others accountable in more honest and helpful ways.
You have more patience, as you value the long-term process over the short-term product. You measure success by growing yourself, not proving yourself. You have a more reliable foundation for self-worth, using internal standards of substance instead of external standards of appearance.
You claim a greater sense of agency in your life; you are not constrained by the qualities you were born with, or the circumstances of your upbringing. You feel a greater sense of control and self-determination. You can choose what kind of person to be, what constitutes intelligence, success, failure, a good friend, a good education, and a good life.
Footnotes: