Growth Mindset
The Basic Idea
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.” Perhaps you’ve heard this phrase, and many similar ones, throughout your life. If so, you should feel lucky to have been surrounded by so many supportive people. As cheesy as these phrases may sound, they remind us that there is always room for improvement, encouraging us to persevere.
This is the idea behind a growth mindset: we believe our intelligence and abilities can be developed over time.1 Growth mindsets are one end of the spectrum of how we think about ourselves, with fixed mindsets on the opposite end. Having a growth mindset means we are eager to learn, adaptive, find value in embracing challenges, and believe that being effortful can improve certain skills, compared to the fixed mindset’s belief that our abilities are unchangeable.
Even geniuses have to work hard for their achievements. And what’s so heroic, they would say, about having a gift? They may appreciate endowment, but they admire effort, for no matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment..
- Carol Dweck in her 2006 book,Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
About the Author
Cece Li
Cece was a former content creator with a passion for behavioral science. She previously created content for The Decision Lab, and her insights continue to be valuable to our readers.
