Friday, August 28, 2015

Growth Mindset: My Thoughts

I had never heard of Carol Dweck before, but I'm glad I have now! Her ideology is great, especially two ideas: "Not not, but yet" and "Challenge is the new comfort."

On the spectrum of growth-fixed mindset in my school work, I see myself enjoying a challenge. I love learning new things, and growing. I loved how Carol put it as, "Challenge is the new comfort." I think I'll try to think of that as a new mantra.

I apply "Challenge is the new comfort" to myself when I write and when I am working out.

When I write short stories or novels in class or out of class I challenge myself. As a Professional Writing major, write novels and short stories is a bulk of my workload. I am constantly challenging myself with switching to viewpoints or genres that I'm not necessarily comfortable with, and I also create characters and plot lines that are challenging to write as an author.

I am constantly challenging myself when I'm working out, whether that is with hula hoop dancing, or bike riding. With hoop dancing, I try to learn new tricks, which I always have to practice over and over (and over and over and over and over) again until I get it! With bike riding, there is this great, big, severely inclined hill by my house. I make myself try to go over this hill, even though it is so difficult. The first time I went over it, I had to stop and walk my bike over this hill, but then the next times I was able to go over it, and then go over it faster!

While at OU, I have learned about my learning that I don't enjoy easy (breeze by) classes. I've had a couple classes like this, and I found it to be so stifling! In fact, that is the reason that I decided to go to college in the first place.

In fact, right out of High School I had attended Hair School and received my hair license. However, I didn't enjoy doing hair as a living. I actually got great grades in High School, and have always enjoyed writing. So, I found doing hair to be very intellectually stifling, and I wanted to stimulate my brain more--so, I went to college, and I have been loving it! I have greatly enjoyed both stimulating my brain and challenging it!

My favorite challenge that I saw was the one called "stories about growth!" I thought that applying this concept to our readings would be a great exercise!

My personal goals for this semester are to adhere to the work schedule (that I created for myself,) and to do things ahead of time. I typically procrastinate and wait until the last moment, but when I do that I do not learn as much! I end up rushing my work, and don't fully absorb the information. So, I want to adhere to my work schedule that does not support procrastination.

Another goal of mine is to make time to read for pleasure. So often during the school year do I have so much reading for classes, that I don't end up reading for pleasure. But I think reading for pleasure is so important! Those who write read, and I notice that the more I read, the more I write! As a writer, this is infinitely important. Plus, reading books in the genre that I write in, rather than only reading what schoolwork assigns, helps me gain better ideas for my writing.

I'm excited to apply growth mindset to my academic and personal life!

(Image by: Laura Gibbs)



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