Unstuck: 10 Things to Do to Stay Safe and Sane During the Pandemic - 6

Using a Growth Mindset
Have you heard about "mindset"? Psychologist Carol Dweck studied
this and found that there are two different mindsets: growth and fixed.
A growth mindset leads to the best outcomes. When you have a growth
mindset, you believe that you can become smarter or get better at doing
something by putting forth good effort, working hard, and staying with it.

When you think this way, you are unlikely to give up, so you keep trying. It's all about improving
and believing in yourself. The opposite is the fixed mindset which is more about seeing things in
a locked way: you are either good at math or not, or talented at art or not. When someone thinks
this way, they don't see the point in trying harder or sticking with something.
Adopting a growth mindset can help you cope with this pandemic. Having a growth
mindset almost acts like a cheerleader for you to do better. It allows you to see that there are
endless possibilities to grow.
Can you think about something that has been hard for you to do, or hard to master?

How could you think about it differently, using a growth mindset? And what can you do to
change it?

Is there something else about this time that you would like to change which is within your
control? If so, what can you do to change it? If you had a growth mindset, how could you think
about it?

If you can't come up with anything specific, what can you do to practice sticking with it? Can you
find a complicated puzzle or large jigsaw, or try to learn something that you think would be hard
to understand? Use this time to discover how to have a growth mindset. If you do, you will end up
being more resilient once the pandemic ends!

Unstuck: 10 Things to Do to Stay Safe and Sane During the Pandemic

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Unstuck: 10 Things to Do to Stay Safe and Sane During the Pandemic