Growth mindset
Psychology professor and author Carol Dweck coined the terms "growth and fixed mindset", which in Swedish translates to "dynamic and static" mindset. The two concepts differ in their view of intelligence, giftedness and talent. People with a static mindset believe that a person's giftedness, intelligence and talent are innate and impossible to influence. A person with a dynamic mindset believes the opposite, that we can cultivate our basic qualities through effort. This means that those who are not born with the talent to play the piano can learn by practicing hard. This does not mean that with a dynamic mindset you believe that everyone can become Einstein or Zlatan. Rather, that human potential is unknown and that it is impossible to predict how far we can reach with the help of training, effort and passion.
Some people have a very static mindset and some a very dynamic one. The vast majority lie somewhere in between, as if on a spectrum between the two. It also differs in different areas of life for an individual person.
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Growth vs Fixed mindset
You can clarify the difference between the different mindsets by looking at the attitude towards different factors such as talent, challenge, effort, feedback and adversity.
With a static mindset, you see talent as something innate and unchanging. That what you got with you is the fate of life. With a dynamic mindset, you instead see talent as a result of hard work and as something that can always be improved.
If you have a static mindset, you see challenges as overwhelming and something to be avoided because it will reveal your lack of talent. With a dynamic mindset, you instead embrace challenges and see them as opportunities for change.
With a static mindset, you see effort as something unnecessary and you associate it with not being good enough. With a dynamic mindset, you instead see effort as something essential and fundamental. As something that leads to mastery.
If you are a person with a static mindset, you take feedback personally and become defensive. You interpret criticism and feedback as signals that you are not sufficient. With a dynamic mindset, you see feedback as useful. As a way of identifying areas that can be improved. You welcome feedback and see it as something positive.
These two opposing mindsets also differ in how we view and deal with adversity. With a static mindset, you become discouraged and take a setback as proof that you are not good enough. With a dynamic mindset, you see adversity as an opportunity to learn from your mistakes and focus on making changes.
There are many more areas/situations that can illustrate the difference between the different mindsets. The success of others, for example, where people with a static mindset feel threatened by the success of others, it induces envy and a feeling of inferiority. A person with a dynamic mindset is instead inspired by the success of others.
How do different mindsets affect our behavior and mental health?
If you have a static mindset and believe that your qualities and characteristics are set in stone, you will seek confirmation, over and over again. This is because, if you only have a certain amount of intelligence and a certain degree of talent, then you will feel the need to prove that it is enough, that you are sufficient. This can manifest itself in the fact that in any given situation you evaluate whether you will win or lose, appear smart or stupid, be accepted or not, feel like a winner or a loser. Life becomes filled with uncertainty and a constant search for the reassuring confirmation.
With a dynamic mindset, you don't waste time trying to prove to yourself and others that you're good enough. Instead, you see the opportunity to become even better and to develop. Why try to hide your shortcomings when you can overcome them? You don't look for friends or partners who confirm and support yours self-esteem. Instead, you look for people who encourage and challenge you to grow. Because why stay in what you know you can already do when you can take on challenges that make you develop?
When you shift between the different mindsets, it's like entering different worlds. In that one world, success is about proving you're smart or talented. In the other world, success is about challenging yourself to learn something new and develop. In the one world, failure is about setbacks. There, getting a bad grade, losing a match, getting fired, or being rejected means you're not smart enough, not popular enough, not good enough. In the other world, failure is about not growing, not reaching far enough towards what you value. It means not reaching your full potential. In one world, effort is a bad thing. If you need to make an effort, it means you are not smart enough. If you were, you wouldn't have to put in the effort. In the other world, effort is what makes you smarter.
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What does the research say?
Research suggests that our mindset plays a crucial role in how well we succeed in life. People with a dynamic mindset are more likely to keep trying when faced with difficulties, while people with a static mindset prefer to give up.
It is the passion and the will to grow by stepping outside one's comfort zone that characterizes a dynamic mindset. That mindset makes people cope and master even the most challenging periods in their lives.
With dynamic mindset, personal success is working hard to become the best version of yourself. With a static mindset, it is simply to establish one's superiority, to be the one who is better than others.
It all boils down to the fact that mindset is an interpretive process about what is going on around us. With a static mindset, that process is an inner monologue of constant judging and valuing. Where every little piece of information is used as evidence to determine things like whether you're good enough, whether your partner is selfish, whether you're better than the person next to you, etc. With a dynamic mindset, the process is more about constantly seeing opportunities for improvement and development, to absorb as much information and input as possible to put it into action towards becoming a better version of oneself.
What shapes our mindset?
We are shaped during our childhood, and so are our ways of thinking. Children who are praised for being smart and talented develop a static mindset, while children who are praised for trying hard and putting in a lot of work adopt a dynamic mindset. The difference lies in getting praise for the process rather than how well you do. One learns that the value is not in the actual performance but in the effort and that the performance is thus not static, it is dynamic depending on the effort.
Studies on children
Studies on children show that children who have formed a static mindset tend to take the easy way out. They choose easy tasks that confirm their existing ability, believing that smart kids don't make mistakes. Children with a dynamic mindset, on the contrary, choose tasks that stretch their abilities and cannot understand why one would want to do the same tasks again that they have already completed. In other words, children with a static mindset want to make sure they succeed in order to appear smart, while those with a dynamic mindset want to challenge themselves because their view of success is getting smarter.
Children who are praised for their performance become discouraged when faced with difficult challenges, while children who are praised for their effort are more likely to be bullied. Children who are praised for their performance tend to perform progressively worse on more difficult tasks because their self-confidence sinks. They become discouraged by their own attitude that one is either "good or bad" and lose their enthusiasm. Instead, children who are praised for their effort improve with the number of challenges and also have much more fun.
In one study, children were given IQ tests and then asked to write a message to their parents about the experience. They also had to write to their parents what score they got. Perhaps the saddest consequence of having a static mindset turned out to be dishonesty. 40% of children who received praise for their performance lied to their parents about their score to make themselves appear better. With a static mindset, flaws are somewhat shameful.
Love relationships
Our ways of thinking accompany us in all areas of life, not least in our relationships. With a static mindset, you believe that your ideal partner is the one who puts you on a pedestal and makes you feel perfect. With a dynamic mindset, you prefer a partner who recognizes your flaws and lovingly helps and supports you to change. You are looking for someone who encourages development and for you to become a better version of yourself.
A static mindset takes more of the traditional, fairytale view of love. That is to say that when you find the right one, it should be perfect "and they lived happily ever after". The problem there is that you expect everything good to happen automatically. With a static mindset, you tend to think that as soon as problems or challenges arise in your relationship, it's a sign that you're a bad match or that there's something wrong with your partner. Because you believe that characteristics and qualities are constant and cannot change, you also do not see the potential to work through the problems and grow together.
Change your mindset
You can train your way of thinking to become more dynamic and thus see life and yourself as an ever-growing organism in development.
One way to begin that process is to examine if there is any area in your life where you were initially not particularly gifted but over time have become really good at? Think about how it happened. Broaden this exploration by including your surroundings. Look at people who were initially not very good at something that they now have great talent for, how did they get there?
How often when faced with a challenge do you think "I'll never be able to do that" or "there's no point in trying, I'll just embarrass myself". Become aware of your thought patterns! It's the first step in changing your mindset and exploring how far you can go. You can go far.