Reflections on the growth mindset

Right away, I liked how Carol Dweck's TED talk about the growth mindset started — she talked about a school example in which students who didn't pass a class were given a grade of "not yet" rather than being told they failed. 

That resonated with me because I failed calculus II my freshman year, and it felt like the end of the world. It wasn't — I just retook it over the summer, got a good grade and moved on. But I had spent much of high school and middle school chasing high grades and doing what was easy for me rather than pushing myself with more challenging material. Couple that with starting my first editor role at the OU Daily and pulling myself in too many directions, and it's easy to see why I wasn't successful the first time.

I think I fall toward the growth end of the spectrum — I like challenges and I don't shy away from them. We've talked at the OU Daily about the progressive-overload principle, which I think applies more to athletes than journalists, but it's this idea: if you're to get stronger or perform better, you have to push yourself harder than you have before and force your body to adapt. So, to me, the growth mindset sounded a bit like a less aggressive version of the progressive-overload principle, but with the idea of failure being OK built in, too.

I wish I'd learned to fail gracefully before college, but I'm glad I learned what I did with that calculus class. Not the math so much — I haven't used that in years. But I proved to myself that I could work hard and solve problems that seemed impossibly hard. While it was a tough summer, it reminded me that I can do what I push myself to do.

Cat photo from Growth Mindset Memes.