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Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

I revisited the book Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.  I dove in, took notes, and highlighted the big ideas and inspiring quotes.   While I won’t rehash the entire book here, I’ll share some of the key concepts.

Dr. Dweck’s book is built on an exploration of fundamental differences in mindset – fixed mindset vs. growth mindset.  In the fixed mindset people view skills and abilities as static, as in unchanging.  It’s easy to come up with examples of the fixed mindset if you complete the sentence “I’m just not good at ________.”  People fall into the fixed mindset with all sorts of things.  As I read the book, I couldn’t help but hear echos of my self-assessments.  “I’m just not musical.” “I just don’t have good hand-eye coordination.” “I just don’t have an eye for design.”  I could go on, but I’ll spare you more examples of my self-proclaimed shortcomings.  Fixed mindset can also apply to talents when we complete sentences like “I’ve just always been good at __________.”

Either way, the fixed mindset sets us up for failure on a grander scale than any particular skill or ability.  By clinging to a fixed mindset, I effectively eliminate my willingness and ability to improve myself in any way.  Every shortcoming becomes a lifetime sentence of mediocrity.  Anytime I try something new and I’m not good at it, my fixed mindset tells me I have a fundamental deficiency in that area….and I can’t really do anything about it.  Ouch!

The fixed mindset, as you might imagine, leads to avoiding anything that challenges self-perceived strengths.  For example, If my fixed mind tells me I’m good at writing, I’m only going to write in situations where I’m virtually guaranteed to be affirmed and validated.  If critical feedback comes my way, it may pop my ‘good writer’ bubble, and if I’m not inherently good, I’ll never be good.   When the fixed mind is forced to face critical feedback, it justifies and blames in order to protect the perception of ‘natural’ ability.  This avoidance of challenges and useful feedback actually creates stagnation and strengthens the notion of static abilities.

Growth mindset, as you might imagine, focuses on our incredible capacity to learn new things and develop new skills.  Individuals embracing a growth mindset seek out opportunities to learn from feedback – they don’t fear failure because they believe any lack of success is temporary and dependent solely on commitment and effort.

Want to see where you apply your own growth mindset?  Complete the sentence, “After a lot of hard work, I learned how to __________.”  Any time you’re willing to start with the basics and build from there.  Growth mindset generally requires patience, openness to feedback, a willingness to be ‘unsuccessful’, and the ability to enjoy the process of improving.  When you can feel pride based on individual growth rather than comparative success or narrowly defined outcomes, you’re in the growth mindset.

The growth mindset allows us to pursue literally anything and everything regardless of our current skill level.  It opens the door to any and every experience.  It ignores any of the standard excuses, turning “I’m too old” into “It’s never too late.”  “I’ve never been good at that.” becomes “It’s going to be so fun to learn how to do this.”  The best part about all of this is the fact that growth is virtually guaranteed if you can sustain this mindset throughout the process.

Because so much of our mindset is based exclusively on the internal dialogue between our ears, it’s tough to create a concrete plan for shifting from fixed to growth.  That won’t stop us from trying though.  The first step is committing to cultivating the growth mindset, intentionally replacing unhelpful thoughts with thoughts of growth.  Use the examples below, and feel free to come up with your own.

Every failure is an opportunity to learn.

Feedback only helps me learn and grow.

Everything I’ve ever done has required effort to get better.

I can get better at anything I work at.

If I’m willing to looking at my ability honestly, and celebrate small successes, I can have fun regardless of outcomes.

The how matters more than the what.

 

Take a new challenge, practice the growth mindset, and let us know how it goes.

If you’d like to hear more of Dr. Poinsett’s thoughts on Mindset, you can listen to his discussion of the book on The Victory and The Struggle Podcast.

 

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Three Vital Components to Effective Feedback

Each aspect of this could be broken down into excruciating detail, and if you want to hear that breakdown, contact me here.  This blog will provide the highlights…and feel free to leave some feedback in the comments below.

Every organization I’ve ever worked for has made some formal declaration of their openness to feedback.  It’s widely accepted that successful businesses, teams, and relationships are built on a foundation of clearly communicated feedback.  That, however, is easier said than done.  In some instances, the feedback is simply absent – there is no conversation.  In more toxic environments, feedback is actively used to criticize, judge, discouraged, deflected, or otherwise dismissed people.  Occasionally, feedback is present, but ineffective.  Whichever situation you find yourself in, if you want to increase or improve feedback, make sure it includes the following three components:

  1. Observation:  A simple observation is a great place to start with feedback.  This can be an observation of external circumstance or of internal experiences. For example, you may let a coworker know, “I saw that all your TPS reports were turned in on time this month.”  That alone acknowledges that their performance was important enough to pay attention.  It’s clear, concise, and gets right to the point.  In some instances, the observation may be less concrete.  When reviewing a piece of writing, you may reflect, “At the start of the second paragraph, I was a bit confused.”  This is an observation about an internal experience.  Notice that neither of these observations are not subjective.  Be careful to avoid blaming or criticism in these situations.  The previous example could easily become, “At the start of the second paragraph you started writing without a clear direction…you stopped paying attention to where the essay was going”  You can observe your response to the writing, but implying intention (or lack thereof) is an invitation for defensiveness.
  2. Evaluation: This is where you get to say, “Hey, great job this month.”  or “That was horrible.”  Positive evaluation without specific observation becomes quite limiting.  Evaluative statements leave too many questions unanswered and too much room for assumptions.  It’s nice to hear “great job,” but without knowing what concrete detail of your job is great, you haven’t learned anything about what you’re doing well.  Reverse the important bits and you’ll see it’s the same for critical evaluations.  Knowing I got a 65% on an exam doesn’t tell me anything about what I did poorly or what I did well.
  3. Advice: Presuming someone actually wants feedback, they’ll want to know how to improve (or at least maintain) what they’ve already accomplished.  They want advice on what do differently (or the same) moving forward.  You can provide guidance on what needs to change.  Ideally, advice is based on a goal agreed upon by the person providing and receiving the feedback.  Giving advice on how to write a more persuasive essay will be of little value to someone aiming to create an objective, informative piece of literature.

There are two more equally important aspects to feedback, but they only matter if the three components listed above are already being applied.  First of all, effective feedback requires a balance between observation, evaluation, and advice. To actually help a person make changes efficiently, all aspects of feedback will be required. If you constantly tell people, “you are awesome,” take the time to throw in some observations and advice.  If you’re constantly correcting others or telling them what to do, slow down and start making some observations and evaluations.  If you’re missing a piece, or you notice a dramatic imbalance, correct accordingly.  No single aspect of this system works alone, and no ratio is right for every individual or every situation.  Apply observation, evaluation, and advice flexibly to whatever situation you’re in.  The last component, and perhaps the most important to overall effectiveness, is consistency.  A single conversation will never be as effective as an ongoing discussion.  You won’t be able to gauge how feedback is being received in an isolated situation; even if they seem to receive the feedback, the true test comes in changes to the behaviors being observed.  In a one-time discussion, patterns will go unrecognized, goals will be unclear, and proper ratios of observation, evaluation, and advice will be guessed at.  Without consistency, constructive feedback can feel critical and judgmental.  Without practice giving and receiving feedback is an awkward dance of two novices attempting new maneuvers.  Occasional feedback can leave people pained the same way infrequent exercise leads to disproportionate soreness.