Growth Mindset

Image source: AzQuotes

I had never heard of Carol Dweck before this assignment, but found her to be a compelling woman. I agree that our outlooks on life greatly affect our success and happiness, and I have personally experienced the struggles relevant to her work.
There were a lot of things for me to overcome in my first three semesters at OU. I had a lot of family problems and was working in a job that should not have been stressful, but was, due to incompetent employees and management. Eventually, I realized that I had let anger and stress control me for a long time, and that it was having a horrible impact on my success in college and my relationships. I took steps to eliminate unnecessary stress from my life, as college is stressful enough on its own. I got a job at the OU Union Starbucks, changed my major to an area that I was doing better in, and decided to have a good time. These big changes happened two summer ago, and I was taking two summer courses at the time. One of them was a math class. Although it was one of the easiest math courses OU has to offer, I was worried because I have never done well in math. However, I was feeling great at this point and felt in control of what I was doing. I did my best in that math class, and passed with a 95%. The coursework was not as difficult as I had thought it would be, and I could still have done reasonably well without the different outlook. Choosing to perceive difficulties in a new light is what made the difference for me. I realized that anyone can do just about anything as long as they take initiative. For the past two years, I have gotten mostly As in all of my coursework, and nothing below a B.
My life has been happier overall since this change in my mindset. I went from an extremely fixed mindset to a more opened one. I am still working on this, though. It is often hard for me to branch out, because I am afraid of failure or looking dumb. I constantly aim to be more confident in everything I do. I can tell that I have come a long way in my college journey this far, but I still have more growing to do. In my last semester here, I would love to learn more about growth mindset in this class and put it into practice in my daily life.

Comments

  1. UnknownDecember 7, 2017 at 6:00 PM

    I connect with your struggles so much. I haven't worked a job, but I let other stressors take control of my college experience for nearly two years before realizing that's where a lot of my problems were coming from. It took a lot for me to slow down and attack the individual issues that were holding me back, but I'm glad we both found ways to cope and get through it. Here's to the end of the semester!

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