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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?

#71

Post by codethief »

duncanawoods wrote: post #39
trabant00 wrote: post #8

I want to make a case against having a "growth mindset". And against fighting procrastination. And any other self improvement stuff. - all these things happen at a much lower level than conscious thought. We have approaches to achieving based on genetics, early upbringing, life experiences, etc. No amount of wanting things to be different will make it so. - there are no recipes. There is just doing stuff, some will s…

The Allan Watts passage: > "I know all kinds of people who've got this 'higher self' going, practicing their yoga - but they're just like ordinary people, sometimes a little worse. And they can fool themselves. They can say for example, 'Well, my point of view in religion is very liberal. I believe that all religions have divine revelation in them, but I don't understand the way you people fight about it. You fight a…

Thanks for posting the full context, it is indeed entertaining!

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

#72

Post by phunehehe0 »

malcolmocean wrote: post #65

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…

Not exactly the same thing, but this reminds me of a style of speaking/writing that avoids using "to be" verbs. I don't remember the name and can't seem to find it on Wikipedia right now, but it's similar to what this article describes [1]. The crux of it is, you avoid framing things as more absolute and permanent than they really are. For example, you are not inherently bad at math, you are just bad at it in your current state you don't quickly solve problems people regard as "math". Or you are not inherently a bad person, you just did some specific things that hurt people.

[1]: https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/grammar_mechanics/how-...

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

#73

Post by deltron3030 »

Remember how you learned to ride a bike or to swim as a kid. You couldn't avoid the practice because the thing you wanted (have fun with other kids swimming and biking) could only be obtained by this practice.

E.g. you can learn languages or whatever you want actually the same way, but might have to engineer your environment a bit to create a similar anti cheat system like with the kid example above.

You can constrain your environment in a way so that those constraints push in you towards your destination. Think of it like filters or hurdles, where another thing you want (like advancing another hobby) can only be obtained through those filters. It's like jumping into ice cold water, it's brutal at first, but you get used to it.

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

#74

Post by BelleOfTheBall »

surajs wrote: post #42
BelleOfTheBall wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually a huge supporter of self-improvement as a whole and growth mindsets but I think it can be quite dangerous indeed. Many people use them as a way to avoid facing problems they have or distracting themselves from issues that they can't solve through any amount of learning or working. It's important to realize that achieving success in your career, learning five languages or building a cool invention aren't…

> issues that they can't solve through any amount of learning or working. so, what do you recommend?

Therapy and looking inward, through whichever method one prefers. I'm talking about feeling unfulfilled, feeling lost, etc. These aren't things most people can solve with work.

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

#75

Post by max_ »

Some notes in my personal diary that may help. In this case a framework/strategy to "advance" my career.

Below are the criteria.

- Desire “The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.” - Napoleon Hill

- Remove self limiting beliefs. Great comment on this very thread[0]

- Never be satisfic with what you have. Keep lifing the bar for your self. Do harder things once the current ones your doing are easy. For instance, I plan on moving from web development & start doing some cryptoraphy.

- Trust your instincts Kowledege kills action its the #1 source of excuses. Stop asking, you already know what todo.

- Choosing a goal Choose a bold goal, contruct daily routines that will move you to this goal. Goals should also be focused & Intinsically rewarding. i.e Work on what excites you, not is whats on demand. An example is me that has accumlated a not-so popular set of programming skills (Nim, Flutter, Solidity & Scilla). I believe Paul Graham has an a related essay on this[1]

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23614989 [1]: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

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

#77

Post by sul_tasto »

bougiefever wrote: post #47
m12k wrote: post #34

At one point I had a big realization that perfectionism was keeping me from ever going outside my comfort zone. This meant that for decades I had only really been growing in areas where I was naturally gifted and experienced (logic, math and similar) but failed to grow much in areas where I wasn't (e.g. emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills) because that way I never really had to fear failure, or challenge…

There's an old saying that whatever is worth doing is worth doing badly. So true. When I was in Germany, they have a saying that you start with "something to hate". Already knowing that what you're about to do is going to be crap makes it easy to get going. Then you set about fixing your crappy beginning. It gets you unstuck.

if you don’t mind me asking, what’s the expression in German?

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

#78

Post by rogerclark »

phunehehe0 wrote: post #72
malcolmocean wrote: post #65

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…

Not exactly the same thing, but this reminds me of a style of speaking/writing that avoids using "to be" verbs. I don't remember the name and can't seem to find it on Wikipedia right now, but it's similar to what this article describes [1]. The crux of it is, you avoid framing things as more absolute and permanent than they really are. For example, you are not inherently bad at math, you are just bad at it in your cu…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime

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

#79

Post by burntoutfire »

trabant00 wrote: post #8

I want to make a case against having a "growth mindset". And against fighting procrastination. And any other self improvement stuff. - all these things happen at a much lower level than conscious thought. We have approaches to achieving based on genetics, early upbringing, life experiences, etc. No amount of wanting things to be different will make it so. - there are no recipes. There is just doing stuff, some will s…

> Failure is costly and things like accelerated aging and burnout are real.

I can attest to the flipside of this argument - I am 39, for whatever reason have never overstressed or overexerted (took a relatively easy career, don't have a family etc.) and I, even with much less than perfect lifestyle habits, probably look 10 years younger than many people my age. I wonder how much of it is just genetics (plus not liking to be out in the sun) and how much is the life choices.

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

#80

Post by jkhdigital »

When I first read about Dweck’s work on mindset, I thought I had finally found the perfect description of my struggles in childhood. I was like a textbook case of fixed mindset.

But after a while I realized that the abstraction of “mindset” isn’t actually much help in changing your behavior. It’s more like mindset is a label you apply to a set of behaviors after the fact rather than some principle that drives the behavior in the first place. In other words, if you want to have a “growth mindset” then you behave in a way that people with such a mindset behave. That is obviously completely useless advice—so what you’re really digging for is what drives the behavior that Dweck calls fixed mindset.

For me, those behaviors are driven by fear. I suspect that I have a heightened physiological fear response compared to the average person, and fixed mindset behavior is just how I coped with that as a child. There’s really only a handful of ways to deal with that, the most effective of which is basically exposure therapy: engage in low-stakes activities that make you afraid, as often as possible. Frequently taking up new hobbies with a social element is a pretty easy way to accomplish this.

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