Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

The rest of the book is pretty much about you. It’s a mindset exercise in which I ask you to venture with me into a series of dilemmas. In each case, you’ll first see the fixed-mindset reactions, and then work through to a growth-mindset solution.

The First Dilemma. Imagine you’ve applied to graduate school. You applied to just one place because it was the school you had your heart set on. And you were confident you’d be accepted since many people considered your work in your field to be original and exciting. But you were rejected.

The Fixed-Mindset Reaction. At first you tell yourself that it was extremely competitive, so it doesn’t really reflect on you. They probably had more first-rate applicants than they could accept. Then the voice in your head starts in. It tells you that you’re fooling yourself, rationalizing. It tells you that the admissions committee found your work mediocre. After a while, you tell yourself it’s probably true. The work is probably ordinary, pedestrian, and they’d seen that. They were experts. The verdict is in and you’re not worthy.

With some effort you talk yourself back into your first, reasonable, and more flattering conclusion, and you feel better. In the fixed mindset (and in most cognitive therapies), that’s the end of it. You’ve regained your self-esteem, so the job is finished. But in the growth mindset, that’s just the first step. All you’ve done is talk to yourself. Now comes the learning and self-improvement part.

The Growth-Mindset Step. Think about your goal and think about what you could do to stay on track toward achieving it. What steps could you take to help yourself succeed? What information could you gather?

Well, maybe you could apply to more schools next time. Or maybe, in the meantime, you could gather more information about what makes a good application: What are they looking for? What experiences do they value? You could seek out those experiences before the next application.

Since this is a true story, I know what step the rejected applicant took. She was given some strong growth-mindset advice and, a few days later, she called the school. When she located the relevant person and told him the situation, she said, “I don’t want to dispute your decion. I just want to know, if I decide to apply again in the future, how I can improve my application. I would be very grateful if you could give me some feedback along those lines.”

Nobody scoffs at an honest plea for helpful feedback. Several days later, he called her back and offered her admission. It had indeed been a close call and, after reconsidering her application, the department decided they could take one more person that year. Plus, they liked her initiative.

She had reached out for information that would allow her to learn from experience and improve in the future. It turned out in this case that she didn’t have to improve her application. She got to plunge right into learning in her new graduate program.

Plans That You’ll Carry Out and Ones That You Won’t

The key part of our applicant’s reaction was her call to the school to get more information. It wasn’t easy. Every day people plan to do difficult things, but they don’t do them. They think, “I’ll do it tomorrow,” and they swear to themselves that they’ll follow through the next day. Research by Peter Gollwitzer and his colleagues shows that vowing, even intense vowing, is often useless. The next day comes and the next day goes.

What works is making a vivid, concrete plan: “Tomorrow during my break, I’ll get a cup of tea, close the door to my office, and call the graduate school.” Or, in another case: “On Wednesday morning, right after I get up and brush my teeth, I’ll sit at my desk and start writing my report.” Or: “Tonight, right after the dinner dishes are done, I’ll sit down with my wife in the living room and have that discussion. I’ll say to her, ‘Dear, I’d like to talk about something that I think will make us happier.’ ”

Think of something you need to do, something you want to learn, or a problem you have to confront. What is it? Now make a concrete plan. When will you follow through on your plan? Where will you do it? How will you do it? Think about it in vivid detail.

These concrete plans—plans you can visualize—about when, where, and how you are going to do something lead to really high levels of follow-through, which, of course, ups the chances of success.

So the idea is not only to make a growth-mindset plan, but also to visualize, in a concrete way, how you’re going to carry it out.

Feeling Bad, But Doing Good