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Ask HN: How to develop a growth mindset?

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Re: Ask HN: How to develop a growth mindset?

#61

Post by lycidas »

For me, I find that I have to create the conditions for it and it'll naturally come along.

Taking the quarantine for example, I initially thought I would have an infinite amount of time to read new subjects and practice on topics I haven't for awhile, but I quickly found myself spending most of my time on video games. After adjusting my schedule of daily workouts, cooking, sleeping, and everything else I thought was mundane, my motivation to start reading one esoteric security topics and browse new open source projects came back up. Like what other posters are saying, you have to take care of the rest of your life first, both physically and emotionally, and then you'll naturally be creative and daring.

Re: Ask HN: How to develop a growth mindset?

#63

Post by dhimes »

irchans wrote: post #51
0x008 wrote: post #6

Well there is no real secret to learning stuff. Other than a few very extraordinary disciplines, anything can be learned if you put in the time and keep at it regularly. Of course, this statement is only valid if you apply the proper learning techniques, but also these can be learned. It is hard to give you general advice since everybody is at a different mindset and has different learning techniques. What helped me…

Maybe there are a few secrets to learning stuff. Has anybody taken the "Learning how to Learn" coursera course? https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn?ranMID=...

There are practices that make a difference. I haven't taken that course but I built studyswami.com. There's a bibliography there that has a lot of good references if you're interested.

Re: Ask HN: How to develop a growth mindset?

#65

Post by malcolmocean »

I've found some shifts in my language have helped with this. Here's some examples from a blog post I wrote on this awhile ago:

Instead of "Some people are born to be singers—I’m not one of them." ▶ try "I didn’t start with any singing talent—I’ve had to learn it all."

Instead of "I suck at math." ▶ try "Math has been challenging for me."

Instead of "I’ll never be an artist." ▶ try "I feel really dissatisfied with all of the art I’ve tried to produce."

Instead of "I would never be comfortable offering hugs to strangers." ▶ try "I’m finding it really hard to imagine offering hugs to strangers."

Instead of "I never seem to be able to keep my notes organized." ▶ try "In the past, when I tried to keep my notes organized, I didn’t have much success."

Instead of "I’d really like to learn to juggle, but I just can’t." ▶ try "I’d really like to learn to juggle, though I haven’t started yet."

Instead of "I’m not good at origami." ▶ try "I haven’t learned how to do origami yet."

Instead of "I’m just bad at it, and I don’t care." ▶ try "Well, it’s not a priority for me to learn right now."

Here's the blog post, which features a few other kinds of reframes as well as some other examples: http://malcolmocean.com/grow

Can also help to get your friends in on it so they spot when you're using fixed-mindset language and point it out for you :)

Re: Ask HN: How to develop a growth mindset?

#66

Post by temenos »

This is a great question that not everyone asks, especially honestly and genuinely! It can be a little bit uncomfortable to begin things. There's a Norwegian word for it, dørstokkmila, which means doorstep mile. The first mile out the door (like on a run on a cold day) is always the hardest. There are plenty of sayings about it to let us know that this feeling is actually a shared one: another one is "all beginnings are difficult". But this might not bring you consolation (hardy har, perfect example of where knowing it all can't save us: we need to know how to do too, so here are a few more ideas: - thinking about those (rare) nifty elderly people who are able to begin new things with grace and humour: it is exactly their grace and humour that brings them an air of authority even though they may 'look silly' being out of their league - thinking about new things as an experiment, a little game you play with yourself to see how calm you can be in it - making it even harder than it is by asking yourself questions, to prove to yourself that you are curious (after a few hours of this, going back to the 'normal mode' of learning something new will seem easier!) Let us hope we live long, rich lives. Playing games with ourselves to learn how to learn can make our lives more fun than stressful. Finally: - it helps to develop a sense of humour! Good luck to us all on this journey :) And a great but serious book that might be inspiring is Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens. Keep on keeping on!

Re: Ask HN: How to develop a growth mindset?

#67

Post by temenos »

temenos wrote: post #66

This is a great question that not everyone asks, especially honestly and genuinely! It can be a little bit uncomfortable to begin things. There's a Norwegian word for it, dørstokkmila, which means doorstep mile. The first mile out the door (like on a run on a cold day) is always the hardest. There are plenty of sayings about it to let us know that this feeling is actually a shared one: another one is "all beginnings…

* sorry for the typos.

Re: Ask HN: How to develop a growth mindset?

#68

Post by dbcurtis »

Many people have already said, more-or-less, "embrace the suck". Learning new things will always have an initial period of less-than-ideal results. So I won't repeat that.

Let me add: Break down the trouble spots into simpler sub-skills. I learned this being a "Suzuki-dad" -- coaching my child through Suzuki-method violin. When you give a 3-year-old a fiddle, don't expect Mozart after a couple days. The method works by breaking each skill down to the components, and working on each component as a manageable piece, in the order in which they build on each other.

So, if you are trying to learn something, and it isn't going well, analyze the skill that is eluding you, and break it down to constituent components. If that doesn't work, break it down further into even simpler components.

My kid eventually achieved exquisite Mozart, and Bach and De Beriot and Sarasate and Bartok. But even at that level, learning requires taking the troublesome measure, and breaking it down, and constructing little drills that reinforce the skills needed for that measure.

In my own life, I have on the breakfast table a rather sucky pepper mill that I turned out of a nice piece of cherry. I want to make a better pepper mill that doesn't suck, right after I turn a pen that will probably suck. So I am reading up on how to sharpen chisels... and watching YouTube on "how to use a skew chisel" (For context, of all the turning chisels, the skew is the one most likely to catch and scare you senseless. Which happened the one-and-only time I tried to turn a bead with a skew chisel.)

Re: Ask HN: How to develop a growth mindset?

#69

Post by conductr »

I find people like to challenge me to do things I have no interest in doing. Sure, based on what they know about me and my abilities it may seem like a reasonable thing for me to learn. But, maybe after looking into it I can evaluate the cost (time/money) and decide "Nope, don't wanna." It's not that I couldn't. I'm finance guy. My whole career "you need an MBA, you need a CPA" or on the technical side, you need to learn "tableau or flavor of the day". Sure, it would be cool and boost my resume. But, honestly, my trajectory has yet to slow down by not having MBA or CPA. I went to biz school the first time for my undergrad. I literally had some courses where MBA students were in the same class but got different homework. All my jobs come from a network I've built. I have built a reputation and view MBA is a signal on a resume when your resume is one in the stack of resumes. I know a lot about accounting but CPA is for accountants, I work closely with accountants and can partner with them when some something unusual comes up. Tools like Tableau, I learn them when I have a use for them. I've personally never seen a use for it (I see how others could use it given another industry/business datasets/etc). I've looked at it, I know the business data my company has, and I don't have to learn the tool to know it's just going to be a shiny toy instead of impactful for business decisions. All that said, I've climbed the corp ladder from entry level analyst, manager, director, CFO in about 10 years - so again, should I have wasted 2 years on an MBA, another 1-2 years on CPA, nights and weekends on learning technology without application? Often, managers "have to say something" to push you to grow. You should be critical in deciding whether it's the best use of your time.

That's my personal story, but to address the OP question directly; change your response and turn it into a conversation. If you say "I can't/won't be able" that pretty much ends the conversation. "where can I find resources to learn X?" "I don't have a ton of time, do you know of a crash course to get started on X?" "I prefer lectures, I'll see if I can find a course on X." 1) they may know of great resources 2) conversational so you aren't just shooting down their constructive feedback 3) very easy for people to tell you what to learn, more work to tell you how to learn it successfully. If they can't tell you how to learn it, they can't blame you for "failing"

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