Few days ago I entered my daughter’s room and saw that she was doing high-school algebra.
She is in middle school and I asked her, “can you solve it?”
She replied, “yes, of course.”
I added, “if you encounter any problem, get help from Tony, my friend’s son.”
My daughter became upset. I could read her face.
She replied to me, “Dad, why don’t you trust me?”
I didn’t respond immediately but I felt that I hurt her confidence.
I came back to the kitchen and reminded myself what I had learned from Dr. Carol Dweck book ‘Mindset.’
I’d read, I’d learned but I wasn’t applying the principle given by Dr. Dweck.
I would definitely recommend Dr. Dweck’s book “Mindset” as a recommended reading for those who are suffering from a fixed mindset in life.
At the time when I replied to my daughter, I was operated by my fixed mindset which is actually hidden inside me.
Even Though I was aware of it, I was still not shifting toward the periphery of another area, a growth mindset.
“Carol Dweck: If we have to teach our kids only to be a genius, then we have to lose a lot for them, most of the natural talents deplete if we have an unchanged fixed mindset.”
The other day I also saw a similar scene.
I was attending my daughter’s parent conference meeting in her school.
My wife and I were sitting at one table and my daughter was sitting at another table.
One of her friends approached my daughter and asked, “what are you doing?”
She replied “I’m reviewing my story for competition. It’s a little bit complicated, I’m a bit confused.”
“You secured first position last time, am I right?” he added.
My daughter replied, “Yes I did.”
He replied, “Oh, you still spend so much time on your story.”
He further added, “I used to think you are a genius and your competitors must not be as smart as you’re.”
After watching this scene of conversation, I realized that this is another example of an individual suffering from an ill mindset, a fixed mindset.
Actually, these are only some examples but there are so many of these kinds of stories prevalent in our society.
Incident after incident, our society carries a flawed perception.
We all want natural recognition rather than recognition through hard work and consistency.
We try to make natural recognition as our desire leaving hard work and continuous compounding of knowledge behind us.
We completely forget how our human mindset works.
As Marie Curie said beautifully, “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.”
Fear comes from a fixed mindset.
We show fear to our kids to be supertalent as they should be born with it.
We want them as Albert Einstein, Michael Jordan, and Steve Jobs.
In my understanding, this kind of wish is not only bad for the kid’s psychology but it also degrades their confidence for a long time.
Our society is full of people with fixed mindsets.
Dr. Dweck says “If we have to teach our kids only to be a genius, then we have to lose a lot for them, most of the natural talents deplete if we have an unchanged fixed mindset.”
“Fixed mindset is a dark cloud because sometimes it gives us false impressions as clouds cover the sun completely.”
There is another problem we have as a society.
We label our kids as genius in various fields.
My son is good at math.
My daughter is excellent in storytelling.
It seems like we are encouraging our kids but actually we aren’t.
Unknowingly, we are saying that my daughter can’t do math and my son can’t do story telling.
This happens because we are not creatures of logic and reasoning, we are creatures of emotions.
Logic and reasoning is the result of a growth mindset.
In reality either son or daughter can do either work, math or story telling, fabulously if we develop a exploring mindset, a growth mindset.
We who believe in a fixed mindset need a quick fix to succeed, and when we do, we feel proud, more important, and famous than others around us.
We feel a sense of superiority, since for us this is a win.
The truth is we shouldn’t lurk behind the self-esteem of a dark cloud over our head.
Fixed mindset is a dark cloud because sometimes it gives us false impressions as clouds cover the sun completely.
No doubt, a fixed mindset hinders our growth potential and development in different ways.
A growth mindset teaches us how to pinpoint our hidden identity when we are unsuccessful because it is so easy to spot who we are when we are successful.
We must be able to give a specific and precise answer for it and, most importantly, we must teach this phenomenon to our kids.
If we answer this question properly then only we nurture our mindset in a positive direction, and teach others to do the same.
“We must teach our kids: Becoming is way better than being.”
In many cases the societal reality remains opposite than what it supposed to be.
The answer for a growth mindset as opposed to fixed mindset is not only hard work but also clarity.
If we love something or we are thinking of it as our long lasting career, we have to work hard with clear vision for it to achieve.
One simple example, Michael Jordan became the king of basketball because he used to practice when other players were taking a break.
Michael Jordan wasn’t a natural talent by birth, he was the most hard-working and persistent person.
He wasn’t selected in his high school basketball team, he wasn’t selected by his college team, and he wasn’t selected by the first two NBA teams.
So then what kind of mindset he had when he was beginning his basketball career in his early life.
Truth is he gave his all for basketball that he only valued and cared in his entire basketball career.
Michael Jordan taught us: we have to take the challenge, learn from our mistakes, and continue the growth mindset to achieve more.
He grew his positive growth mindset every single day.
Our mindset isn’t static, it is dynamic as cloud, clouds don’t change into something new, it only changes its shape and size.
Clayton Geoffreys, the author of ‘Michael Jordan‘ the biography of the legend says “As what Michael Jordan did despite many early failures, we have to value and respect what we’re doing regardless of the final outcome.”
We have to show and teach the same to our kids what Michael Jordan did.
We must teach our kids: Becoming is way better than being.
The only way we can teach our kids to improve their everyday skills is by keeping track of what works for them and what doesn’t and trying to understand why.
Michael Jordan became the symbol of basketball due to his everyday growth attitude and discipline of keeping track of it.
Dr. Dweck in ‘Mindset‘ says “When we believe our core qualities can be developed through a growth mindset, failures can still hurt, but they shouldn’t deviate and distract us.”
“When hard work adds up with consistency, it beats talent exponentially if talent doesn’t put into work.”
One of my friends works in a pharmaceutical company as a principal scientist. He told me that he has to tackle problems everyday, review new courses of actions, figure out what works and what doesn’t in vaccine development.
He once told me during this COVID pandemic, “we haven’t found the effective vaccine for coronavirus yet, but the search is continuous.”
He reminded me once again that our mindsets are our beliefs. They’re quite powerful even though they’re just faith in our mind, and we can grow our mind every second everyday.
We don’t always need hard confidence in everyday lives to succeed but we always need a kind of mental push subconsciously.
Our subconscious mind works all the time whether we are awake or sleep so that it doesn’t contradict with our conscious mind of not having pure confidence everyday. The equilibrium between conscious and subconscious mind could be shifted in our decisions by our mental habits.
Thich Nhat Hanh, the author of ‘The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching‘ says “Buddha passed through absolute stillness and peace on his way into nirvana, this was possible by moving both conscious and subconscious mind in one direction.”
We have to have a habit of forming a picture in our brain forming new connections even if we aren’t doing any practice or work. The picture of a growth mindset helps to take challenges and more to learn continuously.
There is nothing like innate talent, this is crystal clear, we must teach our kids about this misconception that talent isn’t born, it is made.
As Dr. Dweck says, “success is more than 99 percent is hard work.”
If hard work adds up with consistency, it beats talent exponentially if talent doesn’t put into work.
Conclusion
Psychologists Karen Horney and Carl Rogers said, “Many times our kids feel insecure particularly from parents. Kids feel distress, pain, and lost in the crazy world. The truth is they are very young and cannot speak against parents. They cannot walk alone, they have to find out how to win parents’ trust.”
The most important thing is that we must give our kids the freedom to grow.
They learn more from their own interest than our interest as parents.
We as parents must learn what our kids are trying to tell us rather than what we are trying to tell them.
Let our kids know that Albert Einstein, Michael Jordan, and Steve Jobs have made the word ‘impossible’ a very small word on the planet.
The word ‘impossible’ is thrown around by fixed mindsets who find it easier to live in a small bubble of the universe.
Yam Timsina, PhD, writes primarily on health basics, scientific progress, social upliftment, and value creation.
Disclaimer: “Please note that some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase through them, at no extra cost to you.”
