Peace! First and foremost, I’d like to tell you guys Happy New Year! So, I was recently invited to the social media app Club House. I was hesitant due to the foolishness and party line vibes with folks over talking one another. However, a good friend sold me on it after explaining his experience. While navigating the app, I scrolled across a room by a group called “Human Behaviour”. I don’t remember the actual title of the room… My Bad… The discussion was about how to plan and have successful 2021. The discussion that the moderator was having was about the concept of having a growth versus fixed mindset. A rather interesting concept that I learned while teaching, however I thought was rather misleading to present only one to the kids and not explain the other.
The fixed mindset is that of a person whom believes abilities and understanding are set to a limit and has to resort to playing with the cards they were dealt. For example, a child that grew up in a poverty-stricken community being taught that only people from affluent communities go on to be successful based on access to the resources. This mindset, in my opinion, seem to be limitations built based on fear. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline” (Timothy 1:7). It also seems to create working from a space of comfort other than working to enhance one’s self. One way to learn is to experience and actually fail. It teaches us how and where we need to improve to become better in the future.
In contrast, the growth mindset is the belief that knowledge and abilities can be developed. The mentality that anything can be obtained and/or achieved through persistence, consistency and dedication. Malcolm Gladwell goes into details about the 10,000-hour rule in his book Outliers. I personally conform more to this mindset as I also believe you don’t have to let your environment control the future. Everything is finite especially situations and change is one thing you can expect. I also believe being versatile, being receiving to change as it comes and improving the things in your control propels you to the results you expect. One of the biggest sign of this being evident to me are the progression that black people have made though history.
Carol Dweck, a psychologist that published a book called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, talks about how educators shouldn’t assume the growth mindset because it’s more positive but understand that people possess both, and should always work to overcome the fixed mindset. I totally agree. It’s slightly delusional to believe that everyone has the same cookie cutter opportunity based on one blue print mindset. There are things like prejudice, racism, sexism, classism, nepotism and every other type of “ism”. Not to mention the disproportion in resources being readily available amongst marginalized communities. While it’s great to idealistically keep an invincible and unstoppable mindset, it’s also very realistic to be a bit nervous and have fixed mindset traits. You don’t have to succumb to those fixed mindset traits. Over my years of developing, I’ve become more conscious of the way I spoke to myself and my personal affirmations. The language we use when we talk to ourselves can shift how we think, feel and perform. Be kind to yourself. Don’t be hard on yourself for a failure but rather embrace it as a learning experience to grow from and stay encouraged.
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