Growth Mindset Reflection

    I am familiar with the growth mindset just not Carol Dweck. I would like to start with my own personal experiences with the Growth and Fixed mindsets. Pretty much my entire life, the one thing everyone around me told me I was good at academics. I had a very fixed mindset that has stuck with me my entire life. My last year or two of high school became difficult, I was not good at calculus and I received my first grade below a B and I was devastated and since then I have been wary of that since. I went to a School where AP courses were required and I entered college with over a semester's worth of college credit. However, my school had a 100% graduation rate and a 99% continuing education. There were 101 kids in my class and 33 went to OU, 2 went to Cornell, 1 Georgetown, 1 Syracuse, and 1 Notre Dame. I received the second highest scholarship to OU and got into every college I applied to with scholarships. But it didn't feel like I was good enough, I was JUST one of the 33 kids going to OU. I wasn't validated and that crushed me, the school's high pressure for success is the only thing I can complain about but it's a pretty big thing. Now I have since learned that I define my success and I am proud to attend OU. The first two years of college have been rough, I didn't know how to recover from not succeeding immediately and that stuck with me. I had a great full tuition scholarship, key word being HAD. Once I had my first non-success I just assumed I just wasn't good enough and my performance reflected that belief, and I lost part of that scholarship. I can get it back and I am very close to it, over the last couple of months I have been trying to embrace the growth mindset. It is HARD. Going two decades with a fixed mindset and undergoing a pandemic while trying to self improve is insanely difficult but I am getting there.

I have had secondary experience with the growth mindset. My parents had that mindset with my younger sister. I don't think they chose one way or the other, it just kind of happened that way. I do not know how it personally affects her but I could definitely see more of the "not yet" attitude that Carol Dweck discusses. She is a senior at the same high school I went to, I am not sure how exactly that pressure to go to a prestigious university and things like that affect her, but I have no doubt that it does. She is the most kind and caring person I know, she cares about everyone and everything especially animals. She struggled and still struggles to find her own voice just like most people but what sets her apart is that she wants to help give that voice to other people who cannot do it on their own and she has already started. She does not want to go to college and attends a school that has a 99% rate of continuing education. She wants to jump into the world and get straight to helping others. I am so proud of how she has managed to define her own success with the growth mindset and I wish I had the guts to do what she does. It doesn't mean I don't have the guts but as Carol Dweck says, "not yet."

Source

Do's and Don't's of the Growth Mindset

I resonate with this image because for most of my life I was part of the Don't column.