Self Theories

"This is an absolutely revolutionary book because it reflects Dweck’s research over many years as a professor of psychology at Stanford University where she argues that the pattern of success and failure in the world are very much to do not with our talent but our mind sets or our beliefs. Essentially, what she means by that is that if you believe that success hinges on talent, it follows that any time you fail you are likely to interpret that as meaning that you have insufficient talent and you are likely to give up, which is a perfectly rational thing to do if your premise is correct. But if, on the other hand, you believe that excellence hinges on effort you don’t take failure as an indictment but as an opportunity to grow. If it is true that excellence hinges on effort you will eventually excel. Dweck has lots of research to show that we can inculcate the growth mind set – the mind set that believes that excellence hinges on effort by praising effort rather than talent. But how do you know that they wouldn’t get good or excellent if they try? They might not be a world champion but they could certainly become very good. A better example than sport, which is a zero sum game, is mathematics. A lot of people think, well I am never going to get any better at that, and they give up. But why? The evidence often is that they have only tried it for a few hours. But the point about Dweck’s book is that you have to keep going for a long time before you see your true potential. That’s spot on and I think Dweck deals with this, although I deal with it more in my own book. I think you really must care about the destination. You really need that passion and it needs to come from the inside rather than be externally thrust upon you by pushy parents or teachers."