Growth Mindset

Image source: AZQuotes

I had never heard of Carol Dweck before this assignment, but found her to be a compelling woman. I agree that our outlooks on life greatly affect our success and happiness, and I have personally experienced the struggles relevant to her work.
There were a lot of things for me to overcome in my first three semesters at OU. I had a lot of family problems and was working in a job that should not have been stressful, but was, due to incompetent employees and management. Eventually, I realized that I had let anger and stress control me for a long time, and that it was having a horrible impact on my success in college and my relationships. I took steps to eliminate unnecessary stress from my life, as college is stressful enough on its own. I got a job at the OU Union Starbucks, changed my major to an area that I was doing better in, and decided to have a good time. These big changes happened two summer ago, and I was taking two summer courses at the time. One of them was a math class. Although it was one of the easiest math courses OU has to offer, I was worried because I have never done well in math. However, I was feeling great at this point and felt in control of what I was doing. I did my best in that math class, and passed with a 95%. The coursework was not as difficult as I had thought it would be, and I could still have done reasonably well without the different outlook. Choosing to perceive difficulties in a new light is what made the difference for me. I realized that anyone can do just about anything as long as they take initiative. For the past two years, I have gotten mostly As in all of my coursework, and nothing below a B.
My life has been happier overall since this change in my mindset. I went from an extremely fixed mindset to a more opened one. I am still working on this, though. It is often hard for me to branch out, because I am afraid of failure or looking dumb. I constantly aim to be more confident in everything I do. I can tell that I have come a long way in my college journey this far, but I still have more growing to do. In my last semester here, I would love to learn more about growth mindset in this class and put it into practice in my daily life.

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