See You Later Koa!
Hi, my name is Christy, and I have some fixed mindset triggers. Meet Koa, her name means “fear”. When I am in a high risk situation, Koa tells me that I can only trust myself and if I want something done right, I should just do it myself. Koa encourages me to avoid making hard decisions because it will decrease my approval rating. Koa also tells me that I need to stick to what I’m already good at rather than risk failure. When I was in college as a pre-med major, I thrived in all math and science…until I took chemistry. Although I made a good grade, the concepts were difficult for me and never quite clicked. Koa told me that I needed to change my major because if I couldn’t understand chemistry, I certainly couldn’t make it through med school. I wish I hadn’t listened to Koa that day.
I quite enjoyed this week’s reading of Carol Dweck’s Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. [1] Dweck has a PhD in Social and Developmental Psychology from Yale University and has focused her research on mindset and motivation. Dweck’s research has shown that our mindset greatly influences the way we lead our lives. Dweck has two broad categories to describe our mindsets: fixed mindset and growth mindset. A fixed mindset believes that “qualities are carved in stone” and that there is a fixed amount of talent, intelligence, and even moral character. [2] In an extreme example, this sort of fixed mindset leads children exploring music to believe that they are either a child prodigy or they have no talent and should move on to something they are naturally gifted in. I have seen a child strum a guitar a few times, feel dissatisfied with their inability to immediately play beautiful music, and set it down saying, “Oh well, I guess the guitar isn’t for me!”
In reading this week, I was convicted by some of the fixed mindsets I have imposed on my children. I felt compelled to apologize to one of my daughters. She received my apology well and said, “It’s okay, you’re just an Asian mom!” While I don’t think imposing a fixed mindset on children is limited to Asian mothers, I do think that some Asian cultures have a high value of performance and low tolerance for failure.
This week, I asked two teenagers what they knew about growth mindsets. Both were quickly able to rattle off the general definition of a growth mindset, but what was interesting is that one of them had a high level of confidence in their growth mindset, while the other one admitted to having a fixed mindset at times and said she wanted to improve in her mindset. When speaking at Google, Dweck was asked what keeps her up at night. She responded by saying she fears “people are developing… a ‘false growth mindset’. It’s this idea ‘if it’s good I have it’. So a lot of people are kind of declaring they have it but they don’t.” [3] This idea of being wrong without awareness is better described by Kathryn Schulz, “Of all the things we are wrong about, this idea of error might well top the list. It is our meta-mistake: we are wrong about what it means to be wrong.” [4]
So what does Dweck recommend for increasing your growth mindset? Dweck offers 4 steps in the journey to a (true) growth mindset. [5]
- Embrace your fixed mindset.
- Become aware of fixed mindset triggers.
- Give your fixed mindset persona a name.
- Educate it.
The first step reminded me of step one of the famous twelve steps in AA: admit you have a problem. Once we admit that we have areas where we have a fixed mindset, we can then observe what trigger this type of thinking. Giving your fixed mindset persona a name might seem a little silly but Dweck has found that when college students were asked to identify fixed mindset triggers and give their fixed mindset persona a name, all of the students were able to participate. Compared to past exercises, Dweck found that when asked to consider any fixed mindsets that they needed to work on, there were always a few students that confidently claimed to only have a growth mindset. And finally, once you have done steps 1-3, you can educate your persona when it shows up unannounced. In this way, you can acknowledge its existence, understand why it has shown up, but remind it (yourself) that you are going to choose a growth mindset.
When I first started reading the book, I was tempted to self-diagnose in a binary fashion, “Do I have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset?” I even felt the temptation to justify some fixed mindset tendencies by reminding myself of my growth mindset tendencies. Being reminded that we all have a combination of growth and fixed mindsets was helpful for me and I finished the reading this week feeling courage to say, ‘See you later” to Koa when she shows up next time.
What fixed mindset triggers do you have, and have you given any fixed mindset personas a name?
References
[1] Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Ballantine Books trade pbk. ed (New York: Ballantine Books, 2008).
[2] Ibid, 6.
[3] The Growth Mindset | Carol Dweck | Talks at Google, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-71zdXCMU6A&t=2406s.
[4] Kathryn Schulz, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error (New York: HarperCollins Publisher, 2010), 5.
[5] Dweck, 254-262.
About the Author
Christy
8 responses to “See You Later Koa!”
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Hi Christy, I haven’t found a name yet but it surely does give an identity to something most people wish didn’t exist. I am also fascinated that your teen children already have an awareness of growth and fixed mindset. Does this come from how you and your husband have placed a value on reflection and learning?
Several of my kids’ teachers have taught about growth mindsets, so they were quite familiar with the concept, and also taught me a bit more about it. I’m thankful for Dweck’s work and how it has been widely circulated in the education system!
Christy, I love your fixed mindset name (Fear). Isn’t fear almost always our driving factor?
The other thing it does for me, to recognize that naming it is helpful, is it points out how that “part” of us so often rears its ugly head. This goes along with Internal Family Systems, where we recognize the different parts of us that are often in conflict with each other.
What other parts of yourself might be in conflict with Koa? What does she think she is protecting?
Christy,
I have also found that many of my kids’ teachers have taught the difference in a growth vs fixed mindset. It seems that this idea was taught to many teachers at some point in the last decade or so. I can’t name a persona without feeling like I am going crazy. So, I skip that step.
In what ways has Koa been showing herself as you work on your NPO this semester?
Hey Christy Thank you for this post and inviting us into your journey. I have not given my fixed mindset a name. I think for myself however, I have developed a fixed mindset in managing expectations. While guarding against potential delays and disappointments, it simultaneously has prevented me from looking at and pursuing certain outcomes in both the secular and spiritual arenas.
Hi Christy, Your post resonated with me. I briefly considered writing about all the ways I have imposed a fixed mindset on my eldest daughter, but looking too closely is pretty painful. I thought about how the DLGP is brutal when your kids are already launched and all you can do is watch the old unhealed parts of yourself have new life in the next generation. Wondering if there is anything particular you may be doing differently as a parent after reading this book?
Hi Christy (not Koa), Thank you for this post. I am going to name my fixed mindset Myrtle. I appreciated the supplementary thoughts you provided from Dweck’s talk at Google concerning a ‘false growth mindset.’ In what ways do you think we can discern if we are developing a false or authentic growth mindset?
Christy, in your reflection on fixed and growth mindsets, you mentioned naming your fixed mindset persona as a way to manage it. Can you elaborate on how naming this persona has changed your approach to challenges? Have you found it easier to embrace risks since adopting this strategy?