Summary
Growth mindset = skills are expandable with effort, strategy, and feedback. Biology sets a starting point, not a ceiling. People with growth mindset seek challenges, treat errors as data, and persist with deliberate practice until mastery.
Key ideas (from notes)
- Limits aren’t fixed: don’t use “biology” as destiny; use constraints to choose better strategies.
- Challenge orientation: failure ⇒ iteration; frustration is information, not identity.
- Practice → mastery: “keep trying until you get it” (celebrate figuring it out moments).
- Process praise: reward effort, strategies, and help-seeking—not “talent.”
- Nervous system unlocks: after hard work/therapy, you often exit with something that used to feel impossible now accessible—capture that state to reinforce the loop.
Apply at work (dev/learning)
- Plan: set a “not yet” target each week (one skill slightly above current level).
- Do: tight feedback loops (small PRs, tests first, public WIP).
- Reflect: keep a failure → lesson → next step log after each attempt.
- Praise process: during reviews, comment on decomposition, tests, and retries.
Micro-habits (acceptance style)
- When a test fails, I write 1 lesson + next experiment before fixing. Pass = lesson recorded.
- Before shipping, I note what I changed in my strategy since last attempt. Pass = 1 concrete change.
- After a “stuck → unlocked” moment, I capture trigger, strategy, outcome in 3 lines. Pass = logged within 24h.
Phrases to rewire self-talk
- “I can’t do this yet—what skill is missing?”
- “What strategy changed the result?”
- “Where’s the challenge sweet spot (hard, but doable with help)?”