Week 8 Growth Mindset

(Halfway Sign)

Overall, I would rate my current mindset as mostly growth, some fixed. I could stand to adjust my patterns of thinking some, but my current mindset is largely one that supports my continued learning. 

One respect in which I could stand to improve is my motivation. In addition to struggling with finding internal motivation to work at a good pace, I find myself too often allowing myself to settle for doing the bare minimum in terms of the amount of work that I actually do. While this means that I get the amount done that I need to, it also puts me in a position of always feeling like I'm trying to catch up. I set good goals, the problem is that I have difficulty focusing enough to meet these goals. Perhaps I should be more careful about using scheduling to my advantage. 

In order to achieve these improvements, I'm going to focus on being better about scheduling my time well. I am confident that when I start being more responsible with my time, I will begin to see more of the benefits of being curious and willing to learn manifest. For example, once I am using my time more wisely I will have more time to practice my writing and take good notes on reading because I won't be doing things last minute. I'll also have more time to utilize some of the great feedback I've been receiving on my works.

I also think that I could stand to take more risks with my writing. Although I've stretched my ability some, I think I could improve greatly if I would diverge further from the style of writing I usually adopt. I have a tendency to write in a flowery, descriptive manner. Trying something in a more terse, Hemingway-esque style might be a good exercise. The change could be good for my skillset.

In essence, though, I feel I have done a good job so far of utilizing the Growth Mindset.

Growth Mindset: "You simply think differently"

When I was in elementary school, I was placed in the school's Gifted and Talented program, known as the 'LEAP' program. It was a program designed to help high-performing children get ahead by helping to teach them to think creatively and analytically. The teacher in the LEAP program used to give us all sorts of logic puzzles and we would spend hours working out the answers to various kinds of problems. I may not have known it at the time, but this was reinforcing a growth mindset and a love of learning that my parents had begun fostering years ago. Perhaps one of the most poignant things, though, that Mrs. Hagemeier ever said to us was "You're not any smarter or better than anyone else. You just think differently." What I didn't understand at the time is that Mrs. Hagemeier was teaching us that way of thinking in the same way that my parents taught it to me when they read me chapter books before bed and encouraged me to ask hundreds of questions about the parts that weren't making sense. I have a growth mindset because I was taught that a Mensa puzzle is a fun game and if I can't get an answer right then there's nothing wrong with raising my hand and asking my question - no matter if it may sound silly or irrelevant. I was taught to think rather than being taught to absorb.

I'm glad to have had the opportunity granted by such caregivers and I really do believe in the growth mindset as a rule. I have seen the difference it can make, and I want to help other people experience its benefits as well.

(Top: Four different color houses)

(Middle: Logic puzzle grid)

(Bottom: Girl or woman who appears to be thinking)