This is a much better article than the one from Gates. Thanks.
The "Growth mindset!" safe word part at the end was quite apt.
However, it's possible to get a LOT done when you're not growing. For example in basketball, if you know how to do a play which beats other teams all the time, then running that play can be a great idea. Of course, perhaps another team finally figures out your plays and they become useless. Then you might wish you'd spent some of that time growing and developing more plays.
Like how Gates is successful, and is able to spend more of his time growing and trying different things. Because he doesn't need to spend a lot of his time executing successful plays so he can pay rent.
Thanks for the link. As someone who's never heard of Dweck, I learned a lot from Aaron's point of view on the topic. Also Gates is totally right when he says that this isn't black and white. I'm growth mindset about some parts of my life and embarrassingly fixed mindset about others.
Love this idea, but I do not recommend the book. It's clearly a science article that has been stretched into 250 pages. Same idea, repeated repeated repeated.
I highly recommend a summary, unless you think you'll benefit from reading twenty examples of the same concept. It's one of the few books that I started but didn't finish this year.
Absolutely agree. I'm reading the book now, and it feels like hundreds of examples to reinforce the same idea over and over again. Granted, she varies the topics (business, parenting, sports, academics, etc..) - but the takeaways are exactly the same, and in each case the data draws the same conclusions repeatedly. Still, an interesting topic and not bad for light commute reading.
That's sorta the ultimate in fixed mindsets, right? That eventually we'll all be dead, and so none of it matters.
It's true, but also irrelevant. Focus on what you can do & experience while you're alive, because who cares what happens once we're dead? The scale of granularity that you use to look at life is as arbitrary as the emotional tenor of it, so why not focus in on a timescale that'll actually be interesting?
I guess so but as a human you will naturally seek new experiences. I don't see why you need to adopt a growth mindset to try to expedite what already happens.
Even if a growth mindset leads you to double the amount of experiences, on a logarithmic scale that is inconsequential.
I agree, a "grow mindset" cannot be coerced. You can't believe you can grow when you really believe you are fixed. Perhaps all you can do is add "at this point in time" at the end of all your sentences, and hope for the best.
I’m one of the people who’s not good at math at this point in time.
It depends. In some ways by choosing what NOT to do, you are choosing what to do and have more time, effort and money to invest in them as a result of being conservative with your resources.
Sure, you'll have to exclude things by necessity, but what I was getting at was rather the not doing things because one believes it is actually impossible, while still actually wanting to do that thing for some reason (desire).
> experience while you're alive, because who cares what happens once we're dead?
> so why not focus in on a timescale that'll actually be interesting?
By that logic, it would follow that you should spend all of your money on hookers and blow tonight and shoot yourself come morning. Then the rest of your life will be 100% interesting and enjoyable and the part afterwards is irrelevant.
Edit: I mean the general 'you' not the personal 'you'. Just pointing out that happy growth-minded people don't really believe those quotes or they would live very differently.
"Happy" in this context means satisfied over time, not instantaneously ecstatic. Think of it as the integral of happiness over lifespan. Few people care about how happy they'll be when they're dead; that seems like optimizing for something pointless. Similarly, few people want to be really happy and then be dead the next instant.
Think of Jeff Bezos's regret minimization framework. You want to be able look back on your life from some point many years in the future and say "I lived it the best way that I could". You don't want to look back on your life on your deathbed and think "Man, my whole life, I knew that this day would come and render it all pointless, and now I've proved myself right!" Nor do you want to look back on your life tomorrow and think "Oh shit, this is it!"
> You want to be able look back on your life from some point many years in the future and say "I lived it the best way that I could". You don't want to look back on your life on your deathbed and think "Man, my whole life, I knew that this day would come and render it all pointless, and now I've proved myself right!"
I don't see how these statements are mutually exclusive.
> Few people care about how happy they'll be when they're dead; that seems like optimizing for something pointless.
> You don't want to look back on your life on your deathbed and think...
These statements are rather contradictory. On one hand you acknowledge that my happiness upon death is irrelevant, on the other I'm supposed to care about my life retrospective moments before death.
Damn, did you forget to eat your cornflakes this morning?
Yes, everything is pointless and we'll eventually burn in the sun. But on the other hand, maybe that's not true. If we live as if there is a point, life will be more fun and more interesting, and that's good enough for me.
I find actually find the pointlessness liberating - it's easier to not get stressed out or worked up when nothing actually matters. It's all just a ride.
You can definitely fall into that because yes, the ride always ends up in the same place.
But if you think you can steer it, then you can still have the growth mindset. I don't think you need to convince yourself that there's a point in order to have that.
I think if it as, well, I'm on this ride, I'm not hopping off prematurely, which means I'm stuck here for a while, so why not see the interesting places the ride can take me?
Whenever I find myself starting to stress out, it's because I think I _need_ to be somewhere when I'm not, which is a result of being attached to the outcome of some part of the ride. But there's really no point in being attached to an outcome because even that part will be over soon anyways.
Reframe the question: how do you trick yourself into believing anything when you realize that "belief" is just the random firing of neurons?
I went through a similar existential crisis in high school when I became aware of the laws of physics, of thermodynamics, and of cosmology. After all, if we are all just random interactions of sub-atomic particles fated to intertwine in a certain way and then eventually disappear in the heat-death of the universe, what's the point of anything?
And then I turned that logic back on my own thought patterns, which are after all just random firings of neurons that happen to form patterns which the random firings of other neurons interpret as "me". Certain patterns lead to ennui, hopelessness, and the eventual suicide of the organism through chronic depression. Other patterns gratify the other circuits in the brain, leading to a life that would subjectively be described as happy and fulfilling.
I might not actually have a choice in the matter - after all, it's possible that the paths we follow through life were all pre-ordained at the birth of the universe. But I also know that the question is meaningless, because as we established before, there is no actual "I", only random firings of neurons with electrical impulses that happen to make up a pattern that I perceive as "my thoughts". So given the inherent contradiction in my existence - why not choose the belief system that continues to ensure I have a happy existence?
tl;dr: Prove that you don't exist. Then you can do anything and believe anything you want.
I don't trick myself into believing anything. I can use logic to convince myself that there is a point, or that there is no point, either one just as easily. Without more evidence I can't prove either one. Maybe you can, but I can't.
So try this: assume there is no point and we are going to burn in the sun. Everything is a waste of time. Now what do you do? Kill yourself? Well, I don't want to, so why should I?
Sit still in one spot and wait for death? I tried that, but I got bored after about 10 minutes so I went and made a sandwich. Then I continued doing what I wanted to do with my time. Which was the same stuff I had been doing before I decided that it was all pointless.
It doesn't bother me at all. Philosophy is great for Saturday nights and the third beer. The rest of the time it's boring and distracting.
I'm pretty sure human beings won't make it anywhere close to that far. But either way is irrelevant to our lives now. All we have to worry about is living and making a good impact on the people in our lives - and hopefully leaving humanity slightly better off for having lived.
Nobody inspires for ever. There might have been other Kings half as good as Alexander but nobody remembers them. People remember Mohammad Ali most people don't know who Joe foremon was. You great grand parents were probably very good people but they are likely forgotten as well.
The central idea seems so important, with so much benefit to education if it were true, that it would justify a large scale rigorous experiment [ just as a new kind of promising medicine would be trialed over a wide sample ]
Maybe schooling is stuck in a local maximum, because we don't do things like this, because its not socially acceptable to 'experiment with our childrens education' ?
Is this maybe a western cultural bias, that somehow God blesses you with talent and that's it? Some residue from aristocracy?
When you look at things like Japanese martial arts, it's all about learning from someone more experienced and lots of hard work. The limiting factor is your endurance, and the general sentiment is that "if someone learned before me, I can too".
I'm not sure about that specific instance of Japanese culture, but for East Asia I'd say fixed mindset was much more relevant. I grew up being told that I will never do anything great with my life (not in a mean you-are-stupid way, but just a seemingly "rational"/"realistic" world view that only a few very smart people can do great thing, and I'm not one of them).
I believe everyone should have a growth mindset, but the paper from Dweck is popularized and interpreted a little too loosely. The stricter interpretation is less compelling:
In the Bloody Obvious Position, someone can believe success is 90% innate ability and 10% effort. They might also be an Olympian who realizes that at her level, pretty much everyone is at a innate ability ceiling, and a 10% difference is the difference between a gold medal and a last-place finish. So she practices very hard and does just as well as anyone else.
According to the Controversial Position, this athlete will still do worse than someone who believes success is 80% ability and 20% effort, who will in turn do worse than someone who believes success is 70% ability and 30% effort, all the way down to the person who believes success is 0% ability and 100% effort, who will do best of all and take the gold medal.
It might seem pedantic, but I worry that propagating this loose interpretation will lead to many people believing their positive "growth" attitude, and not years of concentrated practice, is enough to grow.
The inescapable question of free choice always seems to come back into these things. It's easy to say "just think like this" when you already do think like that. It's much more difficult when (for whatever reason) you don't. How much control do we really have over our feelings, our attitudes and our emotions? How much is the result of environment, genetics and circumstance? My personal opinion is a bit of both. But it's really hard to say in what proportion.
Do we really choose when we choose or are we just acting a predetermined role? I have noticed people who do well tend to believe the former. But I'm not convinced this belief is necessarily what caused them to do well and somewhat suspicious that it is partially an attempt to frame their achievements in their own mind as the result of "their" free will and goes back to their need to "prove" themselves superior which may well be the cause of much of their success in the first place. I've met more than a few people who have this need very intently and it seems pretty mechanical and not generally the result of meditative conscious choice.
Not to bash the concept. Sometimes the faulty, but useful belief holds more value than a more truthful belief which leaves one powerless. At least in the short term. Long term and on a societal level the side effects of faulty beliefs become much more prominent. For you and I however, here and now, we are almost certainly better off thinking we can do it (imhop). But the question is very deep and certainly a lot more complex than just clicking a switch and deciding to "think" a certain way which to be frank, is a bit of juvenile and superficial way to think about the topic.
I see free will as an illusion. Things may be predetermined or there may be true randomness, either way our conscious decisions can be reduced to the laws of physics.
But it is an illusion that I am still subject to, and it is useful to believe that I can choose, insofar that anything is useful. If we can't choose then there's really nothing to be said about anything. Isn't it somewhat ironic to comment on someone's behavior while calling free will into question?
Do you mean ironic to comment on people's beliefs while calling free will into question? Absolutely.
Consciousness might just be an illusion as well. But as you point out, these are the conceptual tools we have to work with.
I prefer to think of it like this. People like to think they are making conscious decisions most of the time while in reality most of the time they aren't. Most of the time people are responding to conditioning/stimuli/response like a trained dancing bear or an insect following a pheromone trail.
Still... people have the possibility of having free will. Sometimes it glimmers through a little.. sometimes more, but in order to really have free will people have to step outside of conditioning/stimuli/response and conceive of themselves differently which is a psychological place most people don't enter for long or very often if ever. But the possibility still exist. Again... just a conceptual model that works for me. Not sure there are hard and fast answers in this realm.
If it's an illusion why is it set up like an illusion at all? If you don't have free will, it's not like you'd be sad or would do something about it. You have no free will. You can't even think negative philosophical questions about it, as a consequence. We could just as well have been born as an awareness trapped inside a meat suit intimately aware that we are just observing what is happening in and around that meat suit. The meat suit would grow up, get in fights, backpack across Asia, get married, get cancer, die. To the outside world, it would be indistinguishable to a person with actual free will.
This is interesting in the context of American History. Basically, a majority of settlers were Calvinists. A big part of Calvinist belief was "predestination" which basically holds that a person's destiny (heaven or hell) is determined by God before they are born. This would seem to me to reinforce a "fixed mindset". Paradoxically, out of that same belief system came the "Protestant work ethic" which depending on who you ask made America the greatest country on Earth. I think that one could argue that the "fixed mindset" enabled a sort of wishful thinking attitude: believers though they were predestined so they focused on growth and self improvement over the usual Catholic traditions (which focused on a growth mindset in religious observance while having a more fixed mindset in practical work ethics).
I think your basically right, but the paradox actually makes more sense when you understand a few nuances of Protestantism:
0) Reformed (i.e. Calvinist) theologians made significant efforts to argue their understanding of predestination was not deterministic because humans are moral agents and responsible for their actions. They were aware and quite comfortable that God predestining morally responsible people is a paradox (technically referred to as an antinomy).
1) Reformed theologians also taught the predestined are 'born-again', meaning they are given a new spiritual life that changes that person's perspective and attitudes towards everything. The predestined evidence their salvation by good works.
Here's where the growth mindset would apply. Reformed theologians taught predestination as a motivating belief, rather than a fatalistic one. Grace, or salvation, in Reformed theology doesn't comes through religious observance but comes from faith, which demonstrates itself in how a person lives.
I think it's a combination of work ethic and also relative freedom to do something different . As Americans we seem to want to innovate or do something different.
I think this is an inversion of cause and effect. The reality is much less inspiring; It's "What you achieve affects what you believe" not so much the other way around.
I know this for a fact because as I become more sceptical/pessimistic over time, my achievements increase. If I was a blind optimist, I would probably fail as soon as reality reared its ugly head.
If someone is really lucky throughout their lives, they will have an optimistic view about the world and the people around them.
Unfortunate people might find a statement like this offensive because they know for a fact (based on their own experiences) that this isn't true - It's almost like saying "It's your fault for being poor; it's all in your head!".
Yes, but you might try very hard and still not move up. It's debatable whether it's better to "Fail never having tried at all" versus "Fail having tried as hard as you could".
Think of it as a function. Privilege ia the y-intercept, trying hard is the multiplier, doing are all the factors with an x, and success is your desired Y.
Solve the equation and voila. Doing can be negative if your desired Y goes in that direction from your y-intercept. Remember, you can also control which way axes point.
This can be a multivariate function/equation. It can also have multiple dimensions. The important part is that all of it is definable by you.
Probably in developed countries, trying hard might be an option where in poverty means you most likely have cell phone, laptop and roof over your head. But in developing countries like India, where abject poverty its ugly head, the people even are not aware that there are opportunities which could enable them to move up. All they have time and energy to think about is how to get the next piece of meal for their family. This also partly due to social structure which is deliberately designed to keep them that way for the benefit of upper class people.
> if you don't make a deliberate choice to change something, the world around you will keep you down.
One of the problems is that usually poor people is a lot less educated. They don't event know the actual value of the knowledge that they lack. So it's quite easy that when they try to "improve" their situation they take ineffective or even harmful steps.
That's why education is so important for a well working society. It will give a more fair start to every one even if the resources that that people have are not fairly distributed. We tend to underestimate the value of our knowledge of the world that offers our cultural background.
In some places I know of, a lot of the poor are hostile towards education because they see it as a cultural affront to their values and self-sufficiency and as a form of counter-culture of sorts. This is something that Bill Gates may not have observed much in his travels because this is something I think may be perversely unique to the United States, but I have seen it for myself and it's one of the things that makes me wonder whether encouraging people to do anything beneficial is of value nor even a morally correct choice when they don't want help and would literally rather die than go to college or leave their impoverished communities in search of self improvement. These are areas where even public education is considered "brainwashing" and while maybe somewhat approaching cult-like societal tendencies they're still aware to a degree of what their situation is.
I've read some interesting articles that suggest consciousness may actually be a parallel construction of the brain; the allusion of free will being constantly back-filled. If so, it would be the case that what you achieve effects what you believe quite literally.
In short, people often have no idea why they chose to do what they did. However, when asked, "why did you choose to do that?" they will rarely say, "I don't know" but will instead concoct stories that explain their choices -- explanations that are often wrong.
This is something you will hear from disinterested teens too when their teachers try to make them vocalize their opinions on some school subject:
Teacher: What did you think about <subject>
Teen: I think it's fun
Teacher: Why do you think it's 'fun', just saying it's 'fun' is not a valid opinion.
Teen: Because it engages my curiosity and I want to learn more about <subject>
Teacher: That's good, you shou...
Later you'll hear the pupil complaining, that such exercises are pointless, because the second clarification of the pupil's opinion is just as circular and empty as the initial declaration of 'fun'. You can play this game to infinity, and you will never get to the point that any words have any real intrinsic value.
"but will instead concoct stories that explain their choices"
Piggybacking on SCHiM's comment, and changing "choices" to "beliefs", this is also something you will learn from looking at tribal societies (creation myths, etc).
For those who don't want to drop $30 on a kindle book (don't feel bad, it's not really your choice) the Sam Harris YouTube video is pretty good and has nothing to do with his views on Islam(ism).
Success, of course, begets success. And vice versa.
That's kind of what this article was all about. That you can break through that barrier if you can understand what is shaping your thinking about how the world works.
Do you think it's possible you're conflating scepticism and pessimism with an increased understanding of how the world works? That is, with more experience?
I know I was very optimistic of life what I was in my 20s. Then, in my 30s, that optimism faded. Now, in my 40s, I've come to realize that I'm optimistic again, and I was just naive in my 20s. Perhaps this cycle will repeat or take a new form as I grow older. I'm kind of excited to see what happens.
What comes first? - belief or achievement or self-confidence?
You won't achieve something if you don't believe in it. You just won't persevere and will give up or find workarounds.
But if you believe in it and keep failing consistently, your self-confidence will go down and so will your trust in self. It gets to that miserable "I'm no good" belief until one breaks out of that.
Once you achieve something, it will boost your self-confidence and trust in self will rise and your belief is validated. Then your belief will make you try more and achieve more. Sometimes it leads to overconfidence and bouts of overconfidence will break that trust within oneself - and we just need avoid getting into that downward spiral.
Many times "starters" define limits that are just self-imposed limits. People fall into the ugly 'I can't do that' loop without trying. And they have to be forcibly, inconveniently and painfully pushed out of that. This quote from Star Trek sounds so true "stallion has to be broken to reach it's potential"
I'm a pessimist but I don't believe that pessimism motivated achievements can make one happy unless it is a side-effect. Such achievements root from a negative inner rebellion behaviour. And if we aren't truly happy with those achievements, that makes us doubt and kill our own inner beliefs that led to those achievements. I'm not saying we should be a blind-optimist but stay close to reality.
My brother used to tell me that I need to hit rock bottom first before I will decide to activate the inner strength which is required to get up. I wasn't very successfull after receiving my "Higher School Certificate" because I started studying computer science but quit it after a year. I had no job, no money and I felt miserable. That's the point where I hit bottom and step by step I started to improve my situation.
I still don't see myself as successfull but I'm definitely grateful considering I picked up my first job as a frontend developer at the beginning of 2011 and after 3 companies, I'm working for a subsidiary of eBay in Germany since August 2014.
I apologize if telling a bit about myself is off topic but I think being successfull isn't just about the mindset but there are so many other factors. One of the most important ones is the willingness to take risks. I had a very comfortable job (before I joined eBay) but I realized that I won't be able to grow there at some point. A lot of people thought I was stupid because I quit my job. These are the same type of people who refuse to step out of their comfort zones.
There's an important idea I feel is being missed. Something can be true "in distribution" but not true in a "pathwise" sense. That means, over the long run, for most people, on average x is true. But for specific individual and/or specific time frame it can be very untrue.
Point being I can say to you "adopt a growth mindset", you do it, but it doesn't work and life throws you 'a curve ball' again and again. Doesn't mean my hypothesis was wrong, and doesn't mean you didn't follow through properly. We can both be right in this case.
All it means is, we should act as if our actions/thoughts count, but accept it as a fundamental property of the universe that they may not 'bear fruit'.
I think that most people would be a lot happier if they saw life as a series of low probability events rather than trying to create a story of accumulation.
Life does not accumulate things (luck, good fortune, bad fortune, karma, any other crap that feeds the story of continuity).
Life is about maximizing your exposure to positive low probability events, or the probability of them, and minimizing your exposure to negative low probability events, or the probability of them.
You're not working hard in work to get a reward, you're working hard to be exposed to more chances of possible rewards.
You're not exercise to avoid bad health, you're doing it to lower the chances of a series of low probability diseases.
I think this is the same thing you were saying. I think realising that life is a series of low probability discreet events, not a continuum that accumulates based on past events is a real life changer.
All you can work on is the process of finding the right events to be exposed to - having feelings about the outcome of those events is irrational and leads to unhappiness.
> To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction
I did not read the book, but I think the book is not about becomming succesful but about getting to know your potential. Success and potential are related/connected but there is a huge difference.
Being able to help out your neighbor isn't connected to success in our society. I think a lot of posters in this thread don't realize the destinction between potential and success.
Growth mindset does not imply you can achieve anything, just "you definitely can get better". Perhaps overconfidence can become a risk, but it seems a much lesser evil versus the cost of believing the opposite: "Here is your definitive level, for ever (don't bother)".
> Perhaps overconfidence can become a risk, but it seems a much lesser evil versus the cost of believing the opposite: "Here is your definitive level, for ever (don't bother)".
I think it depends on the individual (situation) which mindset causes higher costs.
Also, take this to the second derivative. You can learn to learn faster and more efficiently. You can set yourself up for success. You can start small, and gain momentum from there. You can learn to hack your motivation.
Will this guarantee success and a happy life? Of course not. But it will greatly increase your chances.
Another way to view it is that the biggest limits in your life are the ones you set.
I'm perfectly aware that some people start with huge disadvantages in life, but whatever your starting point, you can end up much higher. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.
What about that guy who clearly can't sing yet applies for every casting show there is? Maybe by the day he will die he's got performing Rihanna's Umbrella down to a fine art. But what's the point?
> You must discover what you are good at. It requires brutal honesty with oneself.
But isn't that circular reasoning?
"I am not a math person" -> [discover growth mindeset] -> "Math is fun" -> [weeks/months/years later] "Shit I am still not significantly better at math" -> "I am not a math person"
That's the hard part being able to see yourself with some objectivity. The other trap is : "I sing so well I am talented" (and in fact you are at best average).
For any activity there is always better than you, what matters, I think, is where you want to go.
But starting with "I'm not a math person" will close many doors for you.
I think it is easy to praise growth mindset if you are the one who wants to learn and wants to get better through failing. But what about the other side of the coin?
Just imagine you are a teamlead and one guy in your team tells you "hey, I have found 2 new ways how not to impelent Feature X. May I work on feature Y and use the knowledge I gained fucking up feature X?"
Or you have a project team and the profect manager tells you "Hey, I found one new way how not to manage a project, how not to deliver on time and how not to motivate people. May I manage your next project and maybe waste an other million dollars?"
In my experience situations like these end badly...
I don't think these are cases against a growth mindset but rather cases against overconfidence and biting off more than you can chew.
I don't think the point is to say "wow I can get better at anything so I'll take on this big project that's way out of my league". It's more about thinking "wow I can get better at this so I'll ask my manager for tips and maybe a small project in which to grow my skills".
I've read the book twice and its helped me tremendously. I used to say to myself I'm not a maths person but now I say that I can get better if I work on it. I've made more progress than I ever did believing that people are simply born with or without a mind for maths.
Or rather, I think... "What we hear affects us, and we hear ourselves.".
This is an extension of the "surround yourself with positive people" thing, in that I believe it's important to be positive, kind, generous, as the language and tone that we use to express we hear constantly and those words, that tone, shapes our thoughts, mood, aspirations.
It's important to be mindful and to be the person you want to be. By doing so, we frequently are that person.
There was a good episode on the podcast "Invisibilia" discussing this topic of expectations influencing/shaping reality: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/544/b.... Some pretty fascinating stories in this one; well worth a listen! I believe Dweck is referenced/interviewed early on in the episode.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 212 ms ] thread[1]: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dweck
The "Growth mindset!" safe word part at the end was quite apt.
However, it's possible to get a LOT done when you're not growing. For example in basketball, if you know how to do a play which beats other teams all the time, then running that play can be a great idea. Of course, perhaps another team finally figures out your plays and they become useless. Then you might wish you'd spent some of that time growing and developing more plays.
Like how Gates is successful, and is able to spend more of his time growing and trying different things. Because he doesn't need to spend a lot of his time executing successful plays so he can pay rent.
I highly recommend a summary, unless you think you'll benefit from reading twenty examples of the same concept. It's one of the few books that I started but didn't finish this year.
If something excites or intrigues you, then do it. But don't delude yourself that your personal growth really matters.
It's true, but also irrelevant. Focus on what you can do & experience while you're alive, because who cares what happens once we're dead? The scale of granularity that you use to look at life is as arbitrary as the emotional tenor of it, so why not focus in on a timescale that'll actually be interesting?
Even if a growth mindset leads you to double the amount of experiences, on a logarithmic scale that is inconsequential.
I’m one of the people who’s not good at math at this point in time.
It depends. In some ways by choosing what NOT to do, you are choosing what to do and have more time, effort and money to invest in them as a result of being conservative with your resources.
Perhaps the Exclusionist Mindset?
> so why not focus in on a timescale that'll actually be interesting?
By that logic, it would follow that you should spend all of your money on hookers and blow tonight and shoot yourself come morning. Then the rest of your life will be 100% interesting and enjoyable and the part afterwards is irrelevant.
Edit: I mean the general 'you' not the personal 'you'. Just pointing out that happy growth-minded people don't really believe those quotes or they would live very differently.
Think of Jeff Bezos's regret minimization framework. You want to be able look back on your life from some point many years in the future and say "I lived it the best way that I could". You don't want to look back on your life on your deathbed and think "Man, my whole life, I knew that this day would come and render it all pointless, and now I've proved myself right!" Nor do you want to look back on your life tomorrow and think "Oh shit, this is it!"
I don't see how these statements are mutually exclusive.
> You don't want to look back on your life on your deathbed and think...
These statements are rather contradictory. On one hand you acknowledge that my happiness upon death is irrelevant, on the other I'm supposed to care about my life retrospective moments before death.
But if you live only for yourself, then of course, you won't matter after you die.
Yes, everything is pointless and we'll eventually burn in the sun. But on the other hand, maybe that's not true. If we live as if there is a point, life will be more fun and more interesting, and that's good enough for me.
But if you think you can steer it, then you can still have the growth mindset. I don't think you need to convince yourself that there's a point in order to have that.
I think if it as, well, I'm on this ride, I'm not hopping off prematurely, which means I'm stuck here for a while, so why not see the interesting places the ride can take me?
Whenever I find myself starting to stress out, it's because I think I _need_ to be somewhere when I'm not, which is a result of being attached to the outcome of some part of the ride. But there's really no point in being attached to an outcome because even that part will be over soon anyways.
How do you trick yourself into believing there is a point to life when you believe there is none and all the evidence, to you, appears to support it?
I went through a similar existential crisis in high school when I became aware of the laws of physics, of thermodynamics, and of cosmology. After all, if we are all just random interactions of sub-atomic particles fated to intertwine in a certain way and then eventually disappear in the heat-death of the universe, what's the point of anything?
And then I turned that logic back on my own thought patterns, which are after all just random firings of neurons that happen to form patterns which the random firings of other neurons interpret as "me". Certain patterns lead to ennui, hopelessness, and the eventual suicide of the organism through chronic depression. Other patterns gratify the other circuits in the brain, leading to a life that would subjectively be described as happy and fulfilling.
I might not actually have a choice in the matter - after all, it's possible that the paths we follow through life were all pre-ordained at the birth of the universe. But I also know that the question is meaningless, because as we established before, there is no actual "I", only random firings of neurons with electrical impulses that happen to make up a pattern that I perceive as "my thoughts". So given the inherent contradiction in my existence - why not choose the belief system that continues to ensure I have a happy existence?
tl;dr: Prove that you don't exist. Then you can do anything and believe anything you want.
So try this: assume there is no point and we are going to burn in the sun. Everything is a waste of time. Now what do you do? Kill yourself? Well, I don't want to, so why should I?
Sit still in one spot and wait for death? I tried that, but I got bored after about 10 minutes so I went and made a sandwich. Then I continued doing what I wanted to do with my time. Which was the same stuff I had been doing before I decided that it was all pointless.
It doesn't bother me at all. Philosophy is great for Saturday nights and the third beer. The rest of the time it's boring and distracting.
Are we all driven by a desire to be remembered and having left our mark on a cosmic scale?
I'd say do your best to leave the place better than you came into it, and don't sweat too much :)
It's a good summary of an essence :)
Maybe schooling is stuck in a local maximum, because we don't do things like this, because its not socially acceptable to 'experiment with our childrens education' ?
If only! We're camped out on the slopes. A hill climbing algorithm would be a great start.
When you look at things like Japanese martial arts, it's all about learning from someone more experienced and lots of hard work. The limiting factor is your endurance, and the general sentiment is that "if someone learned before me, I can too".
In the Bloody Obvious Position, someone can believe success is 90% innate ability and 10% effort. They might also be an Olympian who realizes that at her level, pretty much everyone is at a innate ability ceiling, and a 10% difference is the difference between a gold medal and a last-place finish. So she practices very hard and does just as well as anyone else.
According to the Controversial Position, this athlete will still do worse than someone who believes success is 80% ability and 20% effort, who will in turn do worse than someone who believes success is 70% ability and 30% effort, all the way down to the person who believes success is 0% ability and 100% effort, who will do best of all and take the gold medal.
It might seem pedantic, but I worry that propagating this loose interpretation will lead to many people believing their positive "growth" attitude, and not years of concentrated practice, is enough to grow.
From: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/10/i-will-never-have-the-a...
Do we really choose when we choose or are we just acting a predetermined role? I have noticed people who do well tend to believe the former. But I'm not convinced this belief is necessarily what caused them to do well and somewhat suspicious that it is partially an attempt to frame their achievements in their own mind as the result of "their" free will and goes back to their need to "prove" themselves superior which may well be the cause of much of their success in the first place. I've met more than a few people who have this need very intently and it seems pretty mechanical and not generally the result of meditative conscious choice.
Not to bash the concept. Sometimes the faulty, but useful belief holds more value than a more truthful belief which leaves one powerless. At least in the short term. Long term and on a societal level the side effects of faulty beliefs become much more prominent. For you and I however, here and now, we are almost certainly better off thinking we can do it (imhop). But the question is very deep and certainly a lot more complex than just clicking a switch and deciding to "think" a certain way which to be frank, is a bit of juvenile and superficial way to think about the topic.
But it is an illusion that I am still subject to, and it is useful to believe that I can choose, insofar that anything is useful. If we can't choose then there's really nothing to be said about anything. Isn't it somewhat ironic to comment on someone's behavior while calling free will into question?
Consciousness might just be an illusion as well. But as you point out, these are the conceptual tools we have to work with.
I prefer to think of it like this. People like to think they are making conscious decisions most of the time while in reality most of the time they aren't. Most of the time people are responding to conditioning/stimuli/response like a trained dancing bear or an insect following a pheromone trail.
Still... people have the possibility of having free will. Sometimes it glimmers through a little.. sometimes more, but in order to really have free will people have to step outside of conditioning/stimuli/response and conceive of themselves differently which is a psychological place most people don't enter for long or very often if ever. But the possibility still exist. Again... just a conceptual model that works for me. Not sure there are hard and fast answers in this realm.
How much do people try? Most people don't even try. At all.
0) Reformed (i.e. Calvinist) theologians made significant efforts to argue their understanding of predestination was not deterministic because humans are moral agents and responsible for their actions. They were aware and quite comfortable that God predestining morally responsible people is a paradox (technically referred to as an antinomy).
1) Reformed theologians also taught the predestined are 'born-again', meaning they are given a new spiritual life that changes that person's perspective and attitudes towards everything. The predestined evidence their salvation by good works.
Here's where the growth mindset would apply. Reformed theologians taught predestination as a motivating belief, rather than a fatalistic one. Grace, or salvation, in Reformed theology doesn't comes through religious observance but comes from faith, which demonstrates itself in how a person lives.
I know this for a fact because as I become more sceptical/pessimistic over time, my achievements increase. If I was a blind optimist, I would probably fail as soon as reality reared its ugly head.
If someone is really lucky throughout their lives, they will have an optimistic view about the world and the people around them.
Unfortunate people might find a statement like this offensive because they know for a fact (based on their own experiences) that this isn't true - It's almost like saying "It's your fault for being poor; it's all in your head!".
But barring all those factors, if you don't make a deliberate choice to change something, the world around you will keep you down.
Solve the equation and voila. Doing can be negative if your desired Y goes in that direction from your y-intercept. Remember, you can also control which way axes point.
This can be a multivariate function/equation. It can also have multiple dimensions. The important part is that all of it is definable by you.
That's also why "what you believe shapes what you achieve".
It might guarantee less pain.
Said like that the answer becomes obvious: It varies from situation to situation. Some bets are good and some are bad.
One of the problems is that usually poor people is a lot less educated. They don't event know the actual value of the knowledge that they lack. So it's quite easy that when they try to "improve" their situation they take ineffective or even harmful steps.
That's why education is so important for a well working society. It will give a more fair start to every one even if the resources that that people have are not fairly distributed. We tend to underestimate the value of our knowledge of the world that offers our cultural background.
http://people.virginia.edu/~tdw/nisbett&wilson.pdf
In short, people often have no idea why they chose to do what they did. However, when asked, "why did you choose to do that?" they will rarely say, "I don't know" but will instead concoct stories that explain their choices -- explanations that are often wrong.
Teacher: What did you think about <subject>
Teen: I think it's fun
Teacher: Why do you think it's 'fun', just saying it's 'fun' is not a valid opinion.
Teen: Because it engages my curiosity and I want to learn more about <subject>
Teacher: That's good, you shou...
Later you'll hear the pupil complaining, that such exercises are pointless, because the second clarification of the pupil's opinion is just as circular and empty as the initial declaration of 'fun'. You can play this game to infinity, and you will never get to the point that any words have any real intrinsic value.
Piggybacking on SCHiM's comment, and changing "choices" to "beliefs", this is also something you will learn from looking at tribal societies (creation myths, etc).
Now I'm reminded of this clip from the Star Trek TNG episode Who Watches the Watchers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uii5WrmChbE)
[1]: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1405134860
I am super optimistic about things that I control however.
That's kind of what this article was all about. That you can break through that barrier if you can understand what is shaping your thinking about how the world works.
Do you think it's possible you're conflating scepticism and pessimism with an increased understanding of how the world works? That is, with more experience?
I know I was very optimistic of life what I was in my 20s. Then, in my 30s, that optimism faded. Now, in my 40s, I've come to realize that I'm optimistic again, and I was just naive in my 20s. Perhaps this cycle will repeat or take a new form as I grow older. I'm kind of excited to see what happens.
What comes first? - belief or achievement or self-confidence?
You won't achieve something if you don't believe in it. You just won't persevere and will give up or find workarounds.
But if you believe in it and keep failing consistently, your self-confidence will go down and so will your trust in self. It gets to that miserable "I'm no good" belief until one breaks out of that.
Once you achieve something, it will boost your self-confidence and trust in self will rise and your belief is validated. Then your belief will make you try more and achieve more. Sometimes it leads to overconfidence and bouts of overconfidence will break that trust within oneself - and we just need avoid getting into that downward spiral.
Many times "starters" define limits that are just self-imposed limits. People fall into the ugly 'I can't do that' loop without trying. And they have to be forcibly, inconveniently and painfully pushed out of that. This quote from Star Trek sounds so true "stallion has to be broken to reach it's potential"
I'm a pessimist but I don't believe that pessimism motivated achievements can make one happy unless it is a side-effect. Such achievements root from a negative inner rebellion behaviour. And if we aren't truly happy with those achievements, that makes us doubt and kill our own inner beliefs that led to those achievements. I'm not saying we should be a blind-optimist but stay close to reality.
I still don't see myself as successfull but I'm definitely grateful considering I picked up my first job as a frontend developer at the beginning of 2011 and after 3 companies, I'm working for a subsidiary of eBay in Germany since August 2014.
I apologize if telling a bit about myself is off topic but I think being successfull isn't just about the mindset but there are so many other factors. One of the most important ones is the willingness to take risks. I had a very comfortable job (before I joined eBay) but I realized that I won't be able to grow there at some point. A lot of people thought I was stupid because I quit my job. These are the same type of people who refuse to step out of their comfort zones.
Heck, there is even a slide[2] for this.
[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023046261045791218...
[2] http://www.slideshare.net/Scottadams925/goals-are-for-losers...
Maybe my study will be of note: If you believe headlines, you should read more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYTN7yVYbeg
Fortunately, yesterday night I was listening it.
[Derek Sivers](https://sivers.org/)
Point being I can say to you "adopt a growth mindset", you do it, but it doesn't work and life throws you 'a curve ball' again and again. Doesn't mean my hypothesis was wrong, and doesn't mean you didn't follow through properly. We can both be right in this case.
All it means is, we should act as if our actions/thoughts count, but accept it as a fundamental property of the universe that they may not 'bear fruit'.
All we can do is embrace the chaos^
^ as in chaotic systems
Life does not accumulate things (luck, good fortune, bad fortune, karma, any other crap that feeds the story of continuity).
Life is about maximizing your exposure to positive low probability events, or the probability of them, and minimizing your exposure to negative low probability events, or the probability of them.
You're not working hard in work to get a reward, you're working hard to be exposed to more chances of possible rewards.
You're not exercise to avoid bad health, you're doing it to lower the chances of a series of low probability diseases.
I think this is the same thing you were saying. I think realising that life is a series of low probability discreet events, not a continuum that accumulates based on past events is a real life changer.
All you can work on is the process of finding the right events to be exposed to - having feelings about the outcome of those events is irrational and leads to unhappiness.
> To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction
Being able to help out your neighbor isn't connected to success in our society. I think a lot of posters in this thread don't realize the destinction between potential and success.
I think it depends on the individual (situation) which mindset causes higher costs.
Will this guarantee success and a happy life? Of course not. But it will greatly increase your chances.
I'm perfectly aware that some people start with huge disadvantages in life, but whatever your starting point, you can end up much higher. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.
Also, why should there be a point? Life is a journey.
But isn't that circular reasoning? "I am not a math person" -> [discover growth mindeset] -> "Math is fun" -> [weeks/months/years later] "Shit I am still not significantly better at math" -> "I am not a math person"
For any activity there is always better than you, what matters, I think, is where you want to go.
But starting with "I'm not a math person" will close many doors for you.
Just imagine you are a teamlead and one guy in your team tells you "hey, I have found 2 new ways how not to impelent Feature X. May I work on feature Y and use the knowledge I gained fucking up feature X?"
Or you have a project team and the profect manager tells you "Hey, I found one new way how not to manage a project, how not to deliver on time and how not to motivate people. May I manage your next project and maybe waste an other million dollars?"
In my experience situations like these end badly...
I don't think the point is to say "wow I can get better at anything so I'll take on this big project that's way out of my league". It's more about thinking "wow I can get better at this so I'll ask my manager for tips and maybe a small project in which to grow my skills".
I've read the book twice and its helped me tremendously. I used to say to myself I'm not a maths person but now I say that I can get better if I work on it. I've made more progress than I ever did believing that people are simply born with or without a mind for maths.
Or rather, I think... "What we hear affects us, and we hear ourselves.".
This is an extension of the "surround yourself with positive people" thing, in that I believe it's important to be positive, kind, generous, as the language and tone that we use to express we hear constantly and those words, that tone, shapes our thoughts, mood, aspirations.
It's important to be mindful and to be the person you want to be. By doing so, we frequently are that person.