Mindset: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential

Carol Dweck

Little, Brown Book Group, Feb 2, 2012 - Psychology - 160 pages

World-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, in decades of research on achievement and success, has discovered a truly groundbreaking idea-the power of our mindset.

Dweck explains why it's not just our abilities and talent that bring us success-but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset. She makes clear why praising intelligence and ability doesn't foster self-esteem and lead to accomplishment, but may actually jeopardize success. With the right mindset, we can motivate our kids and help them to raise their grades, as well as reach our own goals-personal and professional. Dweck reveals what all great parents, teachers, CEOs, and athletes already know: how a simple idea about the brain can create a love of learning and a resilience that is the basis of great accomplishment in every area.

What people are saying

User Review -

Awesome book. Forgive me, I'm not the best at choosing words. I agree with the point that the author is making. Having a fixed mindset prevents you from learning and instead focuses on how you are being perceived. Instead, having a growth mindset focuses on learning and how to improve, with less interest in for example what grade we got.
However, reading this book may make you believe that everyone either has a fixed mindset or a growth mindset, and there is nothing in between. There are a few disadvantages you will get from having this belief.
First of all, we may not learn from people that we label as having a fixed mindset, because we see them not being in the right "camp", which is the growth mindset. Ironically, speaking of fixed beliefs, in this situation we expect that someone with a fixed mindset to just have that mindset: that's who they are. This is not very accurate.
While asking a few questions to determine someone's mindset is good for the research examples given in the book, we should keep in mind that we cannot fully label people as having a fixed or growth mindset.
Instead, we should see anyone's mindset as a set of beliefs which are changeable. Some of them lean towards growth, some lean towards fixed. People can transition from fixed beliefs to growth beliefs and vice versa. The more growth beliefs you have, the better.
If we think we're in the right camp, a danger is to celebrate it. "Yeah, awesome, I knew I had the right mindset! This book confirmed it!" Instead, we should assume we are somewhere in the middle of fixed and growth, and figure out how we move ourselves towards the direction of growth even more. 

Review: Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential

User Review  - Magdalena - Goodreads

I agree with the author that just *knowing* about the mindsets can help you change the way you think about yourself. This book is so good, because it gets to the core of the problems: how people with ...

About the author

Dr. Carol S. Dweck is widely regarded as one of the world's leading researchers in the fields of personality, social psychology and developmental psychology. She has been the William B. Ransford Professor of Psychology at Columbia University and is now the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her scholarly bookSelf-Theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Developmentwas named Book of the Year by the World Education Fellowship. Her work has been featured in such publications asThe New Yorker, Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, andThe Boston Globe, and she has appeared onTodayand 20/20. She lives with her husband in Palo Alto, California.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Mindset: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential
• Author: Carol Dweck
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group, 2012
• ISBN: 1780333935, 9781780333939
• Length: 160 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Management; Education / Counseling / Academic Development; Education / Educational Psychology; Education / Special Education / Gifted; Psychology / Applied Psychology; Psychology / Developmental / Child; Psychology / General; Psychology / Movements / General; Self-Help / General; Self-Help / Motivational & Inspirational; Self-Help / Personal Growth / General