Make up your mindset

It was a Tuesday afternoon and I was helping my nine year old daughter with her list of 10 spelling words.  She correctly spelled 6 of them and was stuck on the other 4.  She started silently crying as I corrected them. 

Me - “What’s going on Em?  Why are you so upset?”

9yo - “I got so many wrong…I’m just bad at this.”

Me - “Em you just got these words yesterday!  No one expects you to know them already…that’s why we are working on them!”

9yo - “I just can’t do it.”

I watched her shoulders drop. Every Monday she has a pre-test, then on Friday the final test, so in my mind we had 4 more days and this was all part of learning.  In her mind she was dumb for not knowing them immediately. This mindset is not unique to my kiddo… I see this in my classrooms every semester.   

In Carol Dweck’s book “Mindset” she details what she called fixed mindset and growth mindset.  A student with a fixed mindset looks at each moment as a snapshot – a still picture of what they can and can’t do and by extension how intelligent they are.  If they get 6 out of 10 on a spelling test – they are stupid.  If they get 10 out of 10 on a spelling test they are smart.  But if asked to take the more advanced list the next week they would decline, fearing a worse score and failure.  According to the book, “A fixed mindset is always judging yourself by your last failure or success”. This manifests itself in the college classroom as a week 4 exodus, a percentage of students just stop showing up when the material gets hard.

A student with a growth mindset would get bored with the easy test and want to learn more even if that meant a drop in scores.  A growth mindset values learning and growth over perfection – because as we know…no one is perfect.  No one sees an infant and thinks “What a dolt!  He can’t even walk yet!” Of course he can’t, he hasn’t learned.  Humans inherently want to know more and do more – but respond to environmental conditions as they become aware of their surroundings and respond to the fear of failure. 

There is another phenomenon that accompanies the week 4 exodus – the week 4 major change.

In addition to the fear of failure and the attribution of that failure to a lack of intelligence, students are often derailed by the concept of “right”.  It is my contention, based on 10 years in the classroom, that Millennials have been sold a bill of goods by the world around them that there is a “right” thing.  A right career, a right path, a right major, a right place, a right time.  That if a student only finds that right thing, they will have found success. Unfortunately the act of FINDING something implies that the work is done when you uncover it.You found it! 

In college a student might choose a major they are passionate about, and in doing so think they might have FOUND the right thing.  But a few weeks into class they are confronted with material that is new and difficult.  The simple act of facing difficulty leads them to question if they are in fact on the RIGHT path…because if it is right, then why is it so hard?  If it was right wouldn’t I already be good at it? 

This flawed notion that destiny is the path of least resistance stands in the way of greatness, because without difficulty there is no growth and without growth there is no mastery. 

The good news is that no one has a permanently fixed or growth mindset.  Transition periods in life like going to college bring out the fixed mindset in all of us because we are uncertain about our future and want a sign that we are doing the right thing.  My advice to you is to remember that there is no “right” major.  Study something that you are interested in, something that you enjoy…even if it is hard.  The enjoyment is the sign that you are making a good choice, not the level of ease. 

Recognize failures (you will have many) as setbacks to be improved upon…not indictments of your intelligence or ability.   When you get a bad grade, ask yourself if you really put in the work to master that skill or if you just assumed that you would do well.  Fate isn’t a substitute for effort and luck is only really valuable if you have the right skills when opportunity knocks. 

None of this is easy, but if you treat your life as a quest for improvement rather than a series of wins and losses you will be much happier and find what is truly “right” for you.