Fixed and growth mindsets became popular after psychologist Carol Dweck published her book, ‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success’. Her book was based on the research conducted by her on how children reacted to unknown problems. She noticed largely two kinds of reaction, one welcoming the challenge and excitement to solve and learn, while other was not so welcoming. The children in the former group believed their skills and knowledge was not fixed and they can grow it to higher levels, hence the growth mindset. Other group believed that no matter how much effort they put in they can not improve their current skill levels. Not so surprisingly the children with growth mindset ended up being more successful in later life.

Hence growth mindset is the belief that one’s skills are not limited and with enough effort, he or she can improve it. For example, non-coder John wants to get into the domain of Android app development because of his growth mindset he did not even perceive learning how to code as a challenge. He jumps in, spends a good amount of time learning and finally is able to launch his first app. If he had a fixed mindset the skill gap would have been enough to stop him from even trying. Thinking about self-learning it would be next to impossible. As we can see the benefits of the growth mindset are tremendous. People with this mindset are often successful. If you are on the journey of self-improvement and being better every day (that’s why you’re on Improveistic 😊) then I would recommend adopting the growth mindset first. It will become easier for you to learn new skills and habits. I highly recommend reading ‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success’. The book contains all the information regarding fixed and growth mindsets and how to develop a growth mindset.
However, common mistake a beginner makes is being too optimistic, I was too, guilty of this. Believing anything could be achieved by any human sometimes may do more harm than good.

Issues with Growth Mindset

Recently I was watching an interview with Hasan Kubba on youtube, one of the authors of ‘The Unfair Advantage’. It discussed the problem with growth Mindset.
The problem with growth Mindset is that it is too optimistic. Optimism is good to an extent but if it goes beyond a certain level, we may lose touch of reality. For example, after knowing how Bill Gates made Windows and saying anybody can do that, is simply being too optimistic. The conditions are not the same. Trying to launch your own OS may not be impossible but sure it is going to be very difficult. If one tries to recreate the same thing, he is very likely to fail. Hence wasting his time and energy. That is the harm I was talking about. Being too optimistic can lead us to pursue impossible dreams which can waste those resources.
‘The Unfair Advantage’ discusses the idea of “Reality Mindset”. “Having your feet rooted to the ground with your head in the clouds”, it means you should set your goals higher while being touch with reality. With reference to the previous example, we can see what steps did Bill Gates take to be successful and try to implement the knowledge accordingly to a new domain. We should analyze the factors that were contributing to one’s success and plan. Identify what factors are common and then decide whether to implement a piece of advice or not.
Before you choose any path on your self-improvement journey make sure to set realistic goals in a realistic time frame. If it does not meet the condition you are more likely to fail and give up easily. Initially start with small achievable goals in a domain and scale up slowly. Like this, you are more likely to be successful and consistent. The sense of achievement from completing smaller goals will motivate you to put more effort. I felt the same phenomenon during my weight-loss journey. I kept weekly goals of losing a particular amount of body weight. Hitting each goal week after week motivated me to keep going. Sometimes even if I was not able to hit a goal, the achievement of the previous weeks kept me motivated. At the end of three months, I was able to lose 21 kgs and learnt to be more realistic!
Therefore, 'Reality Mindset' is a combination of 'Growth and Fixed Mindset' but more tilting towards growth. Learning about the 'Growth and Fixed Mindset' is also important as it allows you to judge your mindset better.
‘Reality Mindset’ is only one of the many valuable lessons in ‘The Unfair Advantage’. The book explains how everyone has his or her own unfair advantages and how you can discover yours. If you want to read more articles on this book, let me know in the comments below.

Conclusion

Growth mindset was believed to be the best mindset for a very long time. It is just being optimistic about your ability to learn. We also discussed why this overly optimistic behaviour is not always good and what is the better alternative. That is Reality Mindset. I hope you will be implementing that in your daily life by setting your goals to be more realistic and achievable. Comment below how are you going to implement this? Also, share the article with your friends to spread more awareness about this better alternative.