Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

When your fixed-mindset son tells stories about doing things better than other children, everyone says, “Yeah, but what did you learn?” When he talks about how easy everything is for him in school, you all say, “Oh, that’s too bad. You’re not learning. Can you find something harder to do so you could learn more?” When he boasts about being a champ, you say, “Champs are the people who work the hardest. You can become a champ. Tomorrow tell me something you’ve done to become a champ.” Poor kid, it’s a conspiracy. In the long run, he doesn’t stand a chance.

When he does his homework and calls it easy or boring, you teach him to find ways to make it more fun and challenging. If he has to write words, like boy, you ask him, “How many words can you think of that rhyme with boy? Write them on separate paper and later we can try to make a sentence that has all the words.” When he finishes his homework, you play that game: “The boy threw the toy into the soy sauce.” “The girl with the cirl [curl] ate a pirl [pearl].” Eventually, he starts coming up with his own ways to make his homework more challenging.

And it’s not just school or sports. You encourage the children to talk about ways they learned to make friends, or ways they’re learning to understand and help others. You want to communicate that feats of intellect or physical prowess are not all you care about.

For a long time, your son remains attracted to the fixed mindset. He loves the idea that he’s inherently special—case closed. He doesn’t love the idea that he has to work every day for some little gain in skill or knowledge. Stardom shouldn’t be so taxing. Yet as the value system in the family shifts toward the growth mindset, he wants to be a player. So at first he talks the talk (squawking), then he walks the walk (balking). Finally, going all the way, he becomes the mindset watchdog. When anyone in the family slips into fixed-mindset thinking, he delights in catching them. “Be careful what you wish for,” you joke to your spouse.

The fixed mindset is so very tempting. It seems to promise children a lifetime of worth, success, and admiration just for sitting there and being who they are. That’s why it can take a lot of work to make the growth mindset flourish where the fixed mindset has taken root.

Effort Gone Awry

Sometimes the problem with a child isn’t too little effort. It’s too much. And for the wrong cause. We’ve all heard about schoolchildren who stay up past midnight every night studying. Or children who are sent to tutors so they can outstrip their classmates. These children are working hard, but they’re typically not in a growth mindset. They’re not focused on love of learning. They’re usually trying to prove themselves to their parents.

And in some cases, the parents may like what comes out of this high effort: the grades, the awards, the admission to top schools. Let’s see how you would handle this one.

The Dilemma. You’re proud of your daughter. She’s at the top of her class and brging home straight A’s. She’s a flute player studying with the best teacher in the country. And you’re confident she’ll get into the top private high school in the city. But every morning before school, she gets an upset stomach, and some days she throws up. You keep feeding her a blander and blander diet to soothe her sensitive stomach, but it doesn’t help. It never occurs to you that she’s a nervous wreck.

When your daughter is diagnosed with an ulcer, it should be a wake-up call, but you and your spouse remain asleep. You continue to see it as a gastrointestinal issue. The doctor, however, insists that you consult a family counselor. He tells you it’s a mandatory part of your daughter’s treatment and hands you a card with the counselor’s name and number.

The Fixed-Mindset Reactions. The counselor tells you to ease up on your daughter: Let her know it’s okay not to work so hard. Make sure she gets more sleep. So you, dutifully following the instructions, make sure she gets to sleep by ten o’clock each night. But this only makes things worse. She now has less time to accomplish all the things that are expected of her.

Despite what the counselor has said, it doesn’t occur to you that she could possibly want your daughter to fall behind other students. Or be less accomplished at the flute. Or risk not getting into the top high school. How could that be good for her?

The counselor realizes she has a big job. Her first goal is to get you more fully in touch with the seriousness of the problem. The second goal is to get you to understand your role in the problem. You and your spouse need to see that it’s your need for perfection that has led to the problem. Your daughter wouldn’t have run herself ragged if she hadn’t been afraid of losing your approval. The third goal is to work out a concrete plan that you can all follow.