Carol S. Dweck Quotes

In the fixed mindset, everything is about the outcome. If you fail - or if you're not the best - it's all been wasted. The growth mindset allows people to value what they're doing regardless of the outcome. They're tackling problems, charting new courses, working on important issues. Maybe they haven't found the cure for cancer, but the search was deeply meaningful.

Bullying is about judging. It's about establishing who is more worthy or important. The more powerful kids judge the less powerful kids. They judge them to be less valuable human beings, and they rub their faces in it on a daily basis. Like the boys in Sheri Levy's study, they get a boost in self-esteem. It's not that bullies are low in self-esteem, but judging and demanding others can give them a self-esteeem rush. Bullies also gain social status from their actions. Others may look up to them and judge them to be cool, powerful, or funny. Or may fear them. Either way, they've upped their standing.

If you make a mistake, you got to make it right. I realized I had a choice. I could sit in my misery or I could do something about it." Pulling

When you're lying on your deathbed, one of the cool things to say is, 'I really explored myself.' This sense of urgency was instilled when my mom died. If you only go through life doing stuff that's easy, shame on you.

Why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you?

A genius who constantly wants to upgrade his genius.

People may start with different temperaments and different aptitudes, but it is clear that experience, training, and personal effort take them the rest of the way.

The growth mindset also doesn't mean everything that CAN be changed SHOULD be changed. We all need to accept some of our imperfections, especially the ones that don't really harm our lives or the lives of others.

This is hard. This is fun.

Before we judge, let's remember that effort isn't quite everything and that all effort is not created equal.

Research shows that normal young children misbehave every three minutes.

No matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.

NASA thought so. When they were soliciting applications for astronauts, they rejected people with pure histories of success and instead selected people who had had significant failures and bounced back from them.

What did you try hard at today?

Picture your ideal love relationship. Does it involve perfect compatibility - no disagreements, no compromises, no hard work? Please think again. In every relationship, issues arise. Try to see them from a growth mindset: Problems can be a vehicle for developing greater understanding and intimacy. Allow your partner to air his or her differences, listen carefully, and discuss them in a patient and caring manner. You may be surprised

More and more research is suggesting that, far from being simply encoded in the genes, much of personality is a flexible and dynamic thing that changes over the life span and is shaped by experience.

A fixed ability that needs to be proven, and a changeable ability that can be developed through learning.

Real self-confidence is not reflected in a title, an expensive suit, a fancy car, or a series of acquisitions. It is reflected in your mindset: your readiness to grow.

What are the consequences of thinking that your intelligence or personality is something you can develop, as opposed to something that is a fixed, deep-seated trait?

When people are in a growth mindset, the stereotype doesn't disrupt their performance. The growth mindset takes the teeth out of the stereotype and makes people better able to fight back. They don't believe in permanent inferiority. And if they are behind - well, then they'll work harder and try to catch up.

Or: "The ideal student values knowledge for its own sake, as well as for its instrumental uses. He or she hopes to make a contribution to society at large.

The view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life.

In one world, failure is about having a setback. Getting a bad grade. Losing a tournament. Getting fired. Getting rejected. It means you're not smart or talented. In the other world, failure is about not growing. Not reaching for the things you value. It means you're not fulfilling your potential. In one world, effort is a bad thing. It, like failure, means you're not smart or talented. If you were, you wouldn't need effort. In the other world, effort is what makes you smart or talented.

I don't mind losing as long as I see improvement or I feel I've done as well as I possibly could.

Not only weren't they discouraged by failure, they didn't even think they were failing. They thought they were learning.

Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it's not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives. A

Beware of success. It can knock you into a fixed mindset.

Studies show that people are terrible at estimating their abilities. Recently, we set out to see who is most likely to do this. Sure, we found that people greatly misestimated their performance and their ability. But it was those with the fixed mindset who accounted for almost all the inaccuracy. The people with the growth mindset were amazingly accurate. When you think about it, this makes sense. If, like those with the growth mindset, you believe you can develop yourself, then you're open to accurate information about your current abilities, even if it's unflattering.

Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn't mean that others can't do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training

On the whole, people with a fixed mindset prefer effortless success, since that's the best way to prove their talent.

It's for you to decide whether change is right for you right now. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But either way keep the growth mindset in your thoughts then when you bump up against obstacles you can turn to it, it will always be there for you showing you a path into the future.

As children, we were given a choice between the talented but erratic hare and the plodding but steady tortoise. The lesson was supposed to be that slow and steady wins the race. But, really, did any of us ever want to be the tortoise? No, we just wanted to be a less foolish hare. We wanted to be swift as the wind and a bit more strategic - say, not taking quite so many snoozes before the finish line. After all, everyone knows you have to show up in order to win. The story of the tortoise and the hare, in trying to put forward the power of effort, gave effort a bad name. It reinforced the image that effort is for the plodders and suggested that in rare instances, when talented people dropped the ball, the plodder could sneak through.

Create an organization that prizes the development of ability - and watch the leaders emerge.

Don't judge. Teach. It's a learning process.

As a New York Times article points out, failure has been transformed from an action (I failed) to an identity (I am a failure). This is especially true in the fixed mindset.

In fact, in the fixed mindset, adolescence is one big test. Am I smart or dumb? Am I good-looking or ugly? Am I cool or nerdy? Am I a winner or a loser? And in the fixed mindset, a loser is forever.

you aren't a failure until you start to blame. What

This low-effort syndrome is often seen as a way that adolescents assert their independence from adults, but it is also a way that students with the fixed mindset protect themselves. They view the adults as saying, "Now we will measure you and see what you've got." And they are answering, "No you won't." John Holt, the great educator, says that these are the games all human beings play when others are sitting in judgment of them.

The whole point of marriage is to encourage your partner's development and have them encourage yours.

In fact, every word and action can send a message. It tells children - or students, or athletes - how to think about themselves. It can be a fixed-mindset message that says: You have permanent traits and I'm judging them. Or it can be a growth-mindset message that says: You are a developing person and I am interested in your development.

IF, like those with the growth mindset, you believe you can develop yourself, then you're open to accurate information about your current abilities, even it it's unflattering. What's more, if you're oriented toward learning, as they are, you need accurate information about your current abilities in order to learn effectively

I derive just as much happiness from the process as from the results.

What can I learn from this? What will I do next time I'm in this situation?

Instead, they are constantly trying to improve. They surround themselves with the most able people they can find, they look squarely at their own mistakes and deficiencies, and they ask frankly what skills they and the company will need in the future.

It is always useful to ask: is there a more interesting way of doing this?
But sometimes the answer may be no. It is then that people need to learn to apply themselves: when there is a painful process or nothing of interest to learn from the task. This is where 'self-regulation' comes in. These are essential skills that we use to help ourselves when tasks are long, complex or unpleasant. These skills can be taught, and students who have mastered them do far better than those who haven't, both in the short run and in the long run.

Malcolm Gladwell, the author and New Yorker writer, has suggested that as a society we value natural, effortless accomplishment over achievement through effort. We endow our heroes with superhuman abilities that led them inevitably toward their greatness.

Are there situations where you get stupid - where you disengage your intelligence? Next time you're in one of those situations, get yourself into a growth mindset - think about learning and improvement, not judgment - and hook it back up.

Some of the world's best athletes didn't start out being that hot. If you have a passion for a sport, put in the effort and see.

CEOs face this choice all the time. Should they confront their shortcomings or should they create a world where they have none? Lee Iacocca chose the latter. He surrounded himself with worshipers, exiled the critics - and quickly lost touch with where his field was going. Lee Iacocca had become a nonlearner.

Becoming is better than being

The fixed mindset, plus stereotyping, plus women's trust in people's assessments: I think we can begin to understand why there's a gender gap in math and science.

Important achievements require a clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies.

This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.

Actually, people with the fixed mindset expect ability to show up on its own, before any learning takes place.

But does a growth mindset make people good just at getting their own way? Often negotiations require people to understand and try to serve the other person's interests as well. Ideally, at the end of a negotiation, both parties feel their needs have been met. In a study with a more challenging negotiation task, those with a growth mindset were able to get beyond initial failures by constructing a deal that addressed both parties' underlying interests. So, not only do those with a growth mindset gain more lucrative outcomes for themselves, but, more important, they also come up with more creative solutions that confer benefits all around.

In a growth mindset, challenges are exciting rather than threatening. So rather than thinking, oh, I'm going to reveal my weaknesses, you say, wow, here's a chance to grow.

When you enter a mindset, you enter a new world. In one world
the world of fixed traits
success is about proving you're smart or talented. Validating yourself. In the other
the world of changing qualities
it's about stretching yourself to learn something new. Developing yourself.

So what should we praise? The effort, the strategies, the doggedness and persistence, the grit people show, the resilience that they show in the face of obstacles, that bouncing back when things go wrong and knowing what to try next. So I think a huge part of promoting a growth mindset in the workplace is to convey those values of process, to give feedback, to reward people engaging in the process, and not just a successful outcome.

Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?

I start sentences with ands and buts. I end sentences with prepositions.

They'd had no interest in proving themselves. They just did what they loved - with tremendous drive and enthusiasm - and it led where it led.

They love to learn. And teaching is a wonderful way to learn. About people and how they tick. About what you teach. About yourself. And about life.

Many of the most accomplished people of our era were considered by experts to have no future. Jackson Pollock, Marcel Proust, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Lucille Ball, and Charles Darwin were all thought to have little potential for their chosen fields.

Now consider the idea that they just used better strategies, taught themselves more, practiced harder, and worked their way through obstacles. You can do that, too, if you want to.

Another way people with the fixed mindset try to repair their self-esteem after a failure is by assigning blame or making excuses.

People with the growth mindset know that it takes time for potential to flower.

Math and science need to be made more hospitable places for women. And women need all the growth mindset they can get to take their rightful places in these fields.

When Do You Feel Smart: When You're Flawless or When You're Learning?

person's true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it's impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training. Did

I looked for themes and underlying principles across lectures," and "I went over mistakes until I was certain I understood them." They were studying to learn, not just to ace the test. And, actually, this was why they got higher grades - not because they were smarter or had a better background in science.

For them it's not about immediate perfection. It's about learning something over time: confronting a challenge and making progress.

The great teachers believe in the growth of the intellect and talent, and they are fascinated with the process of learning.

they would get praise for taking initiative, for seeing a difficult task through, for struggling and learning something new, for being undaunted by a setback, or for being open to and acting on criticism.

Vowing, even intense vowing, is often useless. The next day comes and the next day goes. What works is making a vivid, concrete plan.

When people with the fixed mindset opt for success over growth, what are they really trying to prove? That they're special. Even superior.

It is not always people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest.

The wrong kind of praise creates self-defeating behavior. The right kind motivates students to learn.

Success is about being your best self, not about being better than others; failure is an opportunity, not a condemnation; effort is the key to success.

Wow, that's a really good score. You must have worked really hard.

And this is part of the fixed mindset. Effort is for those who don't have the ability.

I expected differences among children in how they coped with the difficulty, but I saw something I never expected.
Confronted with the hard puzzles, one then-year-old boy pulled up his chair, rubbed his hands together, smacked his lips, and cried out, :I love a challenge!".
I never though anyone loved failure.
Not only weren't they discouraged by failure, they didn't even think they were failing. They though they were learning.

Like my sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Wilson, these teachers preached and practiced the fixed mindset. In their classrooms, the students who started the year in the high-ability group ended the year there, and those who started the year in the low-ability group ended the year there. But some teachers preached and practiced a growth mindset. They focused on the idea that all children could develop their skills, and in their classrooms a weird thing happened. It didn't matter whether students started the year in the high- or the low-ability group. Both groups ended the year way up high. It's a powerful experience to see these findings.

If you don't give anything, don't expect anything. Success is not coming to you, you must come to it.

Many growth-minded people didn't even plan to go to the top. They got there as a result of doing what they love. It's ironic: The top is where the fixed-mindset people hunger to be, but it's where many growth-minded people arrive as a by-product of their enthusiasm for what they do.

They know how to take tests and get A's but they don't know how to do this - yet. They forget the yet.

With the threat of failure looming, students with the growth mindset set instead mobilized their resources for learning. They told us that they, too, sometimes felt overwhelmed, but their response was to dig in and do what it takes. They were like George Danzig. Who? George Danzig was a graduate student in math at Berkeley. One day, as usual, he rushed in late to his math class and quickly copied the two homework problems from the blackboard. When he later went to do them, he found them very difficult, and it took him several days of hard work to crack them open and solve them. They turned out not to be homework problems at all. They were two famous math problems that had never been solved.

Effort is one of those things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it.

Believing that your qualities are carved in stone - the fixed mindset - creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over.

We can choose partner, make friends, hire people who make us feel faultless. But think about it – do you never want to grow? Next time you're tempted to surround yourself with worshippers, go to church.

You can always substantially change how intelligent you are.

When people already know they're deficient, they have nothing to lose by trying.

I believe ability can get you to the top," says coach John Wooden, "but it takes character to keep you there.… It's so easy to … begin thinking you can just 'turn it on' automatically, without proper preparation. It takes real character to keep working as hard or even harder once you're there. When you read about an athlete or team that wins over and over and over, remind yourself, 'More than ability, they have character.'

Hierarchy means very little to me. Let's put together in meetings the people who can help solve a problem, regardless of position.

The students with growth mindset completely took charge of their learning and motivation.

Picture your brain forming new connections as you meet the challenge and learn. Keep on going.

Test scores and measures of achievement tell you where a student is, but they don't tell you where a student could end up.

True self-confidence is the courage to be open - to welcome change and new ideas regardless of their source.

So what should we say when children complete a task - say, math problems - quickly and perfectly? Should we deny them the praise they have earned? Yes. When this happens, I say, Whoops. I guess that was too easy. I apologize for wasting your time. Let's do something you can really learn from!

Your horse is only as fast as your brain. Every time you learn something, your horse will move ahead.

Becoming is better than being. The fixed mindset does not allow people the luxury of becoming. They have to already be.