Previous
Flow
According to psychologist Carol Dweck, a growth mindset is the assumption that intelligence and abilities can grow over time. People with growth mindsets tend to have more grit and achieve greater success over time because they treat failures as opportunities for improvement.
Growth Mindset Quotes in Grit
The Grit quotes below are all either spoken by Growth Mindset or refer to Growth Mindset. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 9: Hope
Quotes
I like to think of a growth mindset this way: Some of us believe, deep down, that people really can change. These growth-oriented people assume that it’s possible, for example, to get smarter if you’re given the right opportunities and support and if you try hard enough and if you believe you can do it. Conversely, some people think you can learn skills, like how to ride a bike or do a sales pitch, but your capacity to learn skills—your talent—can’t be trained. The problem with holding the latter fixed-mindset view—and many people who consider themselves talented do—is that no road is without bumps. […] With a fixed mindset, you’re likely to interpret these setbacks as evidence that, after all, you don’t have “the right stuff”—you’re not good enough. With a growth mindset, you believe you can learn to do better.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Collectively, the evidence I’ve presented tells the following story: A fixed mindset about ability leads to pessimistic explanations of adversity, and that, in turn, leads to both giving up on challenges and avoiding them in the first place. In contrast, a growth mindset leads to optimistic ways of explaining adversity, and that, in turn, leads to perseverance and seeking out new challenges that will ultimately make you even stronger.
growth mindset optimistic self-talk perseverance over adversity
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Grit LitChart as a printable PDF.
Growth Mindset Term Timeline in Grit
The timeline below shows where the term Growth Mindset appears in Grit. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 9: Hope
...instance, they think that an individual’s intelligence doesn’t change over time. But others have a growth mindset —they believe that people can improve their intelligence through effort. When people with fixed mindsets...
(full context)
Dweck’s research suggests that people develop fixed or growth mindsets based on how authority figures responded to their successes and failures. For instance, at the...
(full context)
...most people “default to a fixed mindset,” even if they want to believe in a growth mindset . Everyone has both an inner pessimist and an inner optimist, and people can tip...
(full context)
...pessimistic about their ability to overcome adversity, which leads them to avoid challenges. But a growth mindset makes people approach adversity with optimism, which leads them to embrace and learn from challenges....
(full context)
