Talking about mindset has been all the rage lately. You hear it everywhere – people saying your mindset matters. What does that even mean? How does mindset actually effect you? What is growth mindset vs fixed mindset?
Why should you care?
Mindset Matters
With decades of research completed, psychologist Carol Dweck discovered that mindset does matter.
Mindset is made up of many facets that all effect who we are and how we perceive the world around us. Everyone observes and monitors the things going on around them, mindset is the filter through which you interpret everything.
Your mindset affects how you cope and how you react. So basically, your mindset effects everything about you and how you interact with the world around you.
Your mindset controls how you cope with life’s challenges.
Where does it come from?
Mindset develops throughout childhood, shaped by parenting, teachers, and other experiences. Every interaction a child has with people meaningful to them, shapes their mindset.
This means, as homeschooling moms, it’s up to us to educate ourselves and our partners so that we help our kids develop the best mindset possible!
What is the best mindset to have?
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Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset
Fixed Mindset
People with a fixed mindset believe that intelligence and talent are inborn and can not change.
How does this affect them?
- Avoid Challenges
- Avoid Failure
- Give up quickly
- Perfectionist tendencies
- Fear and Anxiety
- Say, “I’m not smart”
- Critical of themselves
- Seek Approval of others
- Criticize or Judge others
- Resist learning new things
- Feel threatened by other’s success
- Ignore Criticism or Get Defensive
A fixed mindset is obviously not the best mindset to have. People with a fixed mindset are often unhappy and unsuccessful.
This mindset negatively effects every aspect of life. It prevents people from reaching their full potential.
Growth Mindset
People with a growth mindset believe that intelligence and talent can be developed through consistent effort and hard work.
How does this effect them?
- Embrace challenges
- Learn from failure
- Hard work and effort
- Inspired by other’s success
- Excited to learn new things
- Positive self-talk
- Strategize to try things a new way
- Ask for Help
- Persevere
- Use criticism constructively
- Good cooperation with others
A growth mindset is the best mindset to have. People with a growth mindset are happy and excited to persist through the challenges to learn. This makes them successful, even though they don’t focus on succeeding, they focus on the process and it leads to success.
A growth mindset positively effects every aspect of life and helps people reach their full potential!
This is the kind of mindset we should want our kids to have, and the only way to do that is for us to have a growth mindset as well.
What if you have a fixed mindset? What can you do?
The good news is that mindset can change! The brain is an amazing, malleable organ that continues growing and changing throughout life.
In fact, mindset functions as more of a spectrum rather than just having one or the other. But, as spectrums go, you are almost always closer to one side or the other.
If you were raised in a way that led to being on the fixed mindset side of the spectrum, you can change and develop a growth mindset. It won’t be easy, but you can do it.
My Personal Experience
I grew up with a fixed mindset, but didn’t realize it until recently. It’s only in the last six months that I have discovered all this information about mindsets!
What led me to seek this information?
My oldest son was displaying perfectionist tendencies. He was getting angry and frustrated and just giving up almost immediately. He started calling himself stupid and was resistant to any kind of lesson or even learning to play games!
I knew something was wrong and that I needed to fix it.
As soon as I read about a fixed mindset, I knew that this was his problem. He had the wrong mindset and he had gotten that mindset from ME! I felt like a failure, but knew I had to work to change it and help him (and myself in the process).
Looking back, I can see how negatively the fixed mindset has effected me throughout life. I was such a perfectionist as a child, always wanting to do it perfectly on the first try. I was so self-conscious and anxious. Having a fixed mindset prevented me from exerting the effort needed to master things. I gave up so quickly, it really was ridiculous.
How did I develop that mindset? I’ve always been naturally smart, made mostly As in school without really trying. Instead of this being a good thing, it was actually really negative for me. I received lots of comments from a young age about how “smart” I was and it cemented in my mind that being “smart” was the most desirable thing. Going to school and getting good grades just solidified that even further for me.
I was rarely challenged mentally, and I quickly gave up when physical things were challenging because I just decided I wasn’t good at it, so it wasn’t worth my time to keep trying.
How do you fix this when your mind is telling you that you can’t?
Everyday you have to work to change the way you think, practice positive self-talk, and challenge yourself. It’s not easy; you will be re-wiring your brain to do this, but it will be SO WORTH IT!
I’ve been working SO HARD to do this & it is working! I know now how important it is to have a growth mindset vs fixed mindset.
Putting in the effort to develop a growth mindset will change your life and your family’s life.
5 Strategies for Developing a Growth Mindset
- Accept Challenges and keep persisting in them. Reach out and ask for help if you need it.
- Celebrate growth – in yourself & others!
- Pay attention to your self-talk and correct it.
- Set goals, strategize and push yourself to attain them, even when it’s hard.
- Recognize mistakes as opportunities for learning.
Favorite Resource: Big Life Journal
Make sure you sign-up for their weekly emails that have parenting tips and FREE printable growth mindset activities!
Big Life Journal is an amazing resource for parents to help kids develop a growth mindset. There is both a kids edition and teen edition. It’s a great addition to homeschool curriculum, and they have super informative articles on their website that will help you teach your kids the difference between a growth mindset vs fixed mindset. Plus they have activities and games to help kids develop a growth mindset. And really you’ll be developing a growth mindset along the way too!
Remember: If you want your kids to have a growth mindset, you have to model it for them!
Conclusion
Your mindset matters because it effects every aspect of your life. The best thing is to have a growth mindset vs fixed mindset. Mindsets can be changed. With a growth mindset, you are resilient which is one of the best qualities to have. Your mindset also effects your kids, and we all want our kids to be happy, successful, awesome people.
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I love this post! We get so caught up in the day to day, that we forget about the BIG picture. I bought my grandkids the Big Life Journal for Christmas. I wanted them to understand that the good grade isn’t as important as the process that you use to get it. The grade happens once. You can use that process over and over for future success or, if you are not successful, you can revise your process and try again. I want them to see mistakes as challenges and opportunities to learn not negatives. Thank you for putting all of that into one clear concise post!