The mindset for growth
#39 - castle-time and COVID-time
Hi there.
Life has changed quite a bit since I last wrote to you.
Last week was superb with a school celebration paintballing trip followed by a 5-day music tour of Scotland, based in Edinburgh. My first music tour and first overseas trip with school since Year 8, it was both entertaining, educational and eventful.
The past 7 days have been spent, solitary in my room, as I tested positive for The One That Must Not Be Named or Had. I am now all fine, not that I had severe symptoms anyways, and luckily, a 5-day virtual work experience with HSBC has kept me going. An adventurous week of making music around Scotland followed by dull imprisonment in my room, longing to bask in the glorious sunshine as the UK is being blessed with another heatwave: who says life is boring?
The pedometer on my phone illustrates it the best:
Highlight of the week: getting some work experience. It was very useful, learning more about applications and the world of work whilst meeting some intelligent and enthusiastic people.
One of the workshops we had this week about having a Growth Mindset. This is the belief that we can always improve and that failures are a part of the learning process.
A concept promoted by Carol Dweck in her book, a Growth Mindset is a healthy approach to learning, developing and, really, living life. Here are a few of the key components of this attitude we should all try to adopt:
Everything can be learned - yes, genetics and talent play a part, but anything in the world can be done, with effort, commitment and discipline. This way of thinking refutes ideas like “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” or “I’m too old for that”. Your intelligence is not fixed.
The process is more important than the destination - as we saw a couple of issues ago, we can’t always control the outcome but what we can control, and thus should enjoy and focus on, is the process.1
Criticism and failure should be welcomed and used - any feedback you get that tells you how you can do better isn’t seen as an attack or a judgement about yourself but rather an opportunity to improve. Failing gives us the chance to see what went wrong and how we can improve.
“I have not failed 10,000 times—I've successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work” - Thomas Edison
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn” - John C Maxwell
Embrace challenges and obstacles - our limits being tested should be seen as exciting and an opportunity to better ourselves. This is where the feelings of perseverance, persistance, grit, resilience and determination come in, refusing to give up.
Remember that success takes time and hard work - success is expensive. The currency? Hard work. So, in order to grow, you need to put the effort in.
This image below is dotted all around the websites I used, and sums up this post.
Some of the ways this plays out in real life are the language we use to talk to ourselves: instead of “I’m not good enough, this is impossible, I’ll never be that good”, we should be optimistic - “I can’t do that…yet”, “I can learn from my mistakes”, “I’ll try my best”.
We all start our lives, when we’re toddlers, with incredibly growth-oriented mindsets; if not, we wouldn’t learn how to walk!
Think of your life as a sculpture. A fixed mindset tells us that it has been sculpted and is ‘set in stone’. A growth mindset gives you the chance to carve it out.
A growth mindset is an opportunistic school of thought that puts you in charge of your life, giving you the power to control the controllables. Although it’s the more difficult one to take, requiring you to actively not choose the fixed mindset, it eventually puts you on the path to success.
Book of the week 📖
I am finally back to my reading form. I’ve been pacing through Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s been rich with ideas I resonate with so far, as I expected; one of these forms the basis for next week’s post!
Podcast of the week 🎙️
The WIRED Podcast: Welcome to the Great Reinfection
A look into why and how people are being reinfected followed by an exploration into Google’s tricky position with regards to the Russo-Ukraine War: - i’’s more complex than you may think.
Article of the week 📰
Distilling the key insights from this book by Dr Peter Gray, it is a fascinating read into human psychology and a delve into the flaws in our deeply-flawed education system.
Quote of the week 💬
"Stop being a prisoner of your past. Become the architect of your future.” - Robin Sharma
When you face a challenge this week, opt to be the higher self and push through it - you won’t regret your choice.
Adi
This is a difficult idea in a world where grades, money and fame are relished. But we really should be refining and trusting the process. I’m not saying that you forget about the outcomes, that’s impossible. But instead, emphasise the processes that lead to the outcomes.