Summary of Carol Dweck's Mindset: Key Takeaways & Analysis

by Sumoreads

Your mindset—the way you see your qualities and abilities—influences your thoughts and actions. It affects the way you approach life and what becomes of it. People with a fixed mindset believe their skills, talents, and personalities are predetermined and unchangeable. People with a growth mindset see themselves as work in progress; they believe their basic qualities change with learning, concerted efforts, and through the input of others.

People with a fixed mindset have a compulsive need to prove their qualities—their intelligence, morals, abilities—and cover up their shortcomings. They look for opportunities—in their schools, workplaces, and relationships—to confirm or assert their greatness. On the other hand, people with a growth mindset spend less time convincing themselves and others how good they are and more time trying to get better. They look for opportunities to stretch themselves, even where failure is imminent. They believe their innate abilities are just a starting point to a future of unknown possibilities and that, through effort and experience, they can change and grow. To them, performance or test scores only say where they are today, not where they will be tomorrow, or where they will end up.