Why is This Book Really Important to Read For Everyone?
Mindset — One of the characteristics that either make you or break you. If you observe successful people, what do you follow? Is it hard work, persistence, or consistency that you observe? Yes, they have those qualities, and they did get success because of them. But, I would say that they are not absolute.
I think that Mindset is the one that plays an important role in a person's life. Be it personal or professional. If they don’t have a great mindset it would not matter how hardworking they are or how persistent they are, their mindset is going to hold them back.
That is just the intro. In this blog I am going to be sharing with you, the things I learned from reading the book MINDSET, by DR CAROL S. DWECK
The author starts with a question: what makes us humans different from one another. That was a great question. What makes us different? If your answer is Mindset, then you get 10 million points, because you are correct. Other things make us different but Mindset is one of the important things that make us inherently different.
You might say how can you say mindset makes us different. Let me show you an example. In the show Naruto, we have an antagonist called “Pain” whose sole belief is “If You Don’t Share Someone’s Pain, You Can Never Understand Them.” so he chooses destruction. Whereas our protagonist Naruto says that it does have to be like that and people can get to understand each other in a better way.
Now, what do you understand here, both of them are human but both have different perspectives on achieving peace, one is choosing destruction while the other is not. Pain believes that people will not change until they have experienced the pain.
His mindset is fixed — “They won’t change unless they are hurt”.
Let’s take another example, This time is about my experience when I was in school.
I was in tenth grade, and like usual I hated math. It’s not dislike, I hated it from the bottom of my heart. I was really bad at it as well. I always grumbled that I am not a genius. I was not meant to be good at math — is what I thought. That was really fatal and unfortunately, it persisted until I completed my tenth grade. But over time I moved from thinking like that. Now I am neutral when it comes to math.
The above mindsets are an example of a fixed mindset. Where you are thinking that you have to have something to achieve some goal. In my case, I thought that I am not good at math because I am not a genius. I could have worked on things where I was not good. I just blamed myself for not being a genius. That is not good for your mental health.
I know I am saying that a fixed mindset is not a good thing. But is it really possible to completely get out of that mindset? I would say it is possible to get out of it but not completely.
I am saying that because we are humans and at the end of the day we are not perfect. That is what the author says as well. That nobody is going growth-minded. Everybody is a mixture of both a growth mindset and a fixed mindset.
Everybody is a mixture of both a growth mindset and a fixed mindset.
It is ok to be like this. This thought itself is growth-minded.
The author even talks about success and how we interpret it. Like she asks “whether success is about learning or is it about proving you’re smart?” Tell me your thoughts in the comments. If you say that it is about proving yourself as smart… It somewhat makes sense but it is not all about it. Showing off to a level is ok but I think and what I learned is that being growth-minded, i.e learning to be successful is the thing. It’s like you develop in your career also as a human being. Your intellect increases, you become more mature, etc, etc.
You can even say how someone is by looking at their view on failure. If you look at failure as something to learn from, then that is a growth mindset. It is an amazing view of failure. Most people get upset and discouraged when they face failure. It is the same for successful people, the only difference is that instead of giving up they analyze: “what did I do to fail?”, “How can I make it a success and improve myself?”
They are trying to use failure as a stepping stone to get to their goal.
There are a lot of things in which being growth-minded really helps. Like in business, relationships, school, and effort. The author even shares different ideas on how you can implement a growth mindset yourself.
This book is for everyone and I mean everyone. It doesn’t matter if you are a teacher, student, an engineer, or an entrepreneur. This book is something that you should read and you will be thankful for sure.
If you are trying to improve your mindset then this book is for you. What I mentioned in this blog is just the tip of the iceberg. The book explores a lot more different scenarios that the author came across herself in her life.
I hope this blog was helpful. Share your thoughts in the comments. If you like my work then you can buy me a cup of coffee: dataguy6@ybl
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