My Lessons from the Book "Mindset"

 Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

by Carol S. Dweck

   The first time I read this book many years ago. Recently, I decided to read it again and write my lessons from it. In this post, I briefly summarized my takes on it.

   The "Mindset" is a very informative and useful book that helps to correct our attitude in education, sport,  business, relationship, parenting, and others by changing our mindset. I highly recommend reading this book.

   The concept in this book has become popular in the field of self-development and human psychology recently. The book opens up some of the interesting insights on the human mindset and activities based on it. The author, professor of psychology Carol Dweck explains that people have a certain mindset and it defines their action and the consequent outcomes through their activities. Our mindset leads us to grow or limit ourselves.

   The mindset can be distinguished into two types: a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. A growth mindset encourages us to work and learn while the fixed mindset stops us from doing the things that although they might be uncomfortable for the short term they can lead us to grow and become successful in the long term.
 
Fixed mindset

   A fixed mindset considers there is no way for improvement, it is all that can be done and it is meaningless doing extra work. The people with a fixed mindset avoid challenges, can't accept constructive criticism, not try to overcome obstacles, and considers effort is not a solution. Overall, they are feared to look incompetent and this stops them to grow.

Growth mindset

   A growth mindset believes that there is always room for improvement, ready to work more, and never hesitates to make mistakes and learn from the feedback and criticism. The people with a growth mindset welcome challenges, believe that obstacles are part of the process and effort pays off. They are learners and this provides them to be more intelligent.

Benefits of Growth Mindest

   We can cultivate and change our mindset into the growth one through the training and conscious efforts. If we can implement the growth methods in our daily life, we can achieve better results and improve things in a positive direction. The growth practices include acquiring the skills, practicing more, becoming persistent, accepting the criticism, learning from the mistakes, and etc.

In relationship
   In a relationship with people, a growth mindset thinks about understanding, forgiving, and let it go the past and move forward, while a fixed mindset thinks about revenge, hatred, and ending the relationship.

In business
   Training people, providing new skills, and learning from mistakes and being persistent provides to become successful in business. Trusting only the talents of people while ignoring the growth practices may cost expensive in business. 

In parenting
   Praise the effort and hard work of children. Celebrating only the result may negatively affect a child because he worries to make a mistake next time or fail in his next effort. Explaining about hard work, persistence in training, and putting more effort into the task helps to develop a growth mindset in children. This gives them motivation and a growth mindset attitude to improve themselves and become better.

   You will find more useful ideas to correct your mindset and attitude to the things, people, and the events around you. Thank you for reading.