What is Your Mindset?

What's the best way to take control of your own life and push yourself against boundaries?  According to Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, writing in Policy Mic, it's all about your mindset.  Successful people tend to focus on growth, solving problems and self-improvement, while unsuccessful people think of their abilities as fixed assets and avoid challenges.

"Believing that your qualities are carved in stone — the fixed mindset — creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over.  If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character — well, then you'd better prove that you have a healthy dose of them.  It simply wouldn't do to look or feel deficient in these most basic characteristics.

"...There's another mindset in which these traits are not simply a hand you're dealt and have to live with, always trying to convince yourself and others that you have a royal flush when you're secretly worried it's a pair of tens.  In this mindset, the hand you're dealt is just the starting point for development.  This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.  Although people may differ in every which way — in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments — everyone can change and grow through application and experience."

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