Growth Mindset

I have never heard of Carol Deck before, I found it very interesting to listen to her speak all about the topic of Growth Mindset. I watched all the videos and found that I learned a lot about this process and agreed with everything she spoke about. 

When I was younger and in school I definitely had a fixed mindset, forever getting awarded for academic achievement and praise about getting the best grades in the class which I now realised didn't do me any good. As Carol said people who are in a Fixed Mindset want to look smart all the time, don’t leave room for error and believe that they are only given a certain about of intelligence and that this can't be developed. That is the way I would have viewed myself. I never liked making mistakes, I got annoyed at myself for not getting top marks when in reality I should have been praising myself for the effort that I was putting in like people with a growth mindset would do. I do not play sports but when I used to Irish dance and attend competitions I can also relate and see how I had a fixed mindset back then, I put in so much hard work but instead of realising that and praising myself for the effort I put in, I wanted to give up because I didn't win.

 Luckily in the last couple of years I feel I have changed my fixed mindset to that of a Growth Mindset. I have realised mistakes are normal, they show you have tried. I have realised that failure is okay and that you can always get up and try again. I loved when Carol spoke about  a school that gave students a not yet grade instead a fail grade. I thought this was brilliant!!! 

Growth Mindset is definitely something that should be taught in school and should be shown to kids at a young age. Teachers and parents should praise kids for effort not intelligence and should instil this in their minds at a young age. 

My own learning has definitely changed over the years, I now put in more effort and reap the rewards. Some challenges that I can feel when learning new things is that I can sometimes fall back into that fixed mindset and believe that I will not be good at this new thing and that I should just give up. 

I would be very interested in learning more about growth mindset this semester, I think it is very interesting and quite an important message to learn about. For this semester I am excited to see what I can achieve by putting more effort into my work and worrying more about the process of a task rather than the outcome of the task. I am excited to try and train my brain to have a full growth mindset and to more past the fixed mindset that I did have. 

I think learning more about the Growth Mindset could really benefit me, I feel I have learned more already. 

Below is an image that I came across on Pinterest it shows a list of statement and affirmations that I can tell myself to learn from the Growth Mindset. Some phrases include, "I go after my dreams", " Learning is my superpower", " I ask for help when I need it" and " I learn from my mistakes". I think this is a lovely image on Growth Mindset and one that I will definitely make reference to over the coming semester. The main thing that I have learned from Growth Mindset and all that Carol Deck said is that mistakes are okay and a message I remind myself daily and that helps me is that nobody is perfect and that we are all only human.

Image Found On Pinterest.

Caption- Colourful Image with Statements & Affirmations surrounding the Growth Mindset, the image lists 25 statement showung you how to positively encourage and give praise for a Growth Mindset.