Growth vs Mindset
A growth mindset means that you believe your intelligence and talents can be developed over time. A fixed mindset means that you believe intelligence is fixed—so if you’re not good at something, you might believe you’ll never be good at it.
A growth mindset also recognizes that setbacks are a necessary part of the learning process and allows people to ‘bounce back’ by increasing motivational effort.
Those who adopt a growth mindset:
Embrace lifelong learning
Believe intelligence can be improved
Put in more effort to learn
Believe effort leads to mastery
Believe failures are just temporary setbacks
View feedback as a source of information
Willingly embraces challenges
View others’ success as a source of inspiration
View feedback as an opportunity to learn
With a fixed mindset, people believe attributes, such as talent and intelligence, are fixed. They believe they’re born with the level of intelligence and natural talents they’ll reach in adulthood.
A fixed-minded person usually avoids challenges in life, gives up easily, and becomes intimidated or threatened by the success of other people. This is in part because a fixed mindset doesn't see intelligence and talent as something you develop.
There are a few primary characteristics that denote a fixed mindset:
Resistant to change
Disregard for practice
Comparison to others
View obstacles as permanent
