A few years ago, I read the book Mindset by Carol Dweck. And it changed my life. It’s about the difference between a fixed and a growth mindset.

A growth mindset is the belief that intelligence and talents can be improved. A fixed mindset, on the other hand, is the belief that they are fixed.

Growing up, learning came easy to me. But when my homework became harder and I actually had to put some work in, I struggled. My whole identity was wrapped up in this label of being smart and things being easy.

I had a fixed mindset. I’d been reveling in the praise of being smart. But someone who’s smart doesn’t fail tests, right? My solution: doing the bare minimum, and then when I failed I could say: well, I didn’t really try. Which was better than actually trying and failing. But my grades suffered as a result. I even had to redo one year in high school.

I didn’t do this consciously, but after reading Carol Dweck’s Mindset in my 30s, it was as if a veil was lifted and I could see clearly now. And I wish I knew what a growth mindset was in my 20s.

Since learning about growth mindset, I love challenges, learning new things. It’s been liberating. I now understand that failure is part of the journey to achieving anything. I like Tim Ferriss point of view that “Failure isn’t failure if you can gain new skills and develop relationships for future advancement."

The way I see it, it’s like climbing stairs. They’re very steep, so you can’t really see where you’re going. You can only see the next step. But once you’ve climbed ten steps and look back, you see how they’re all connected. The worst thing you can do is to stop climbing.

Now, I follow my curiosity and the world is my playground!

Check out the book: Mindset - Carol S. Dweck: a.co/d/b4pYzvf

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