Self serve career coaching – Mindset: The new psychology of success

Suggestions were made to separate the self serve career coaching series to separate posts, so here’s Now, Discover your strengths and Strength Finder 2.0.  They are combined in a single post as they are very much related.  Read more below.

Carol Dweck Ph.D.
Useful for
Pick one of these statements that you best identify with:
1. Your intelligence is something basic about you that you cannot change much
2. You can learn new things but you cannot change how intelligent you are
3. Regardless of how much intelligence you start with, you can change your intelligence quite a bit (but not infinitely)
4. You can always substantially change how intelligent you are

If you picked 1 or 2 you MUST read this book. If you picked 3 or 4 the book is still helpful for how to deal with us who picked 1 or 2.

You also want to read the book if you:
are doing the same thing day in, day out and don’t love it but still do it because you think that is all you can do or don’t want to try to risk doing something different
don’t think you have potential to do more

Summary
The book describes fixed and growth mindsets and how dealing with challenges can vary. Examples and research are provided to showcase the behaviours for both and the key is that mindsets can be changed.

Although I read many other books prior to this one in my career mentor coaching journey, if I were to recommend one to start with, it would be a toss up between this one and Now, discover your strengths.

My personal interactions/opinions
The book helped explain an experience I personally went through in university. Being oblivious of the concepts at the time, I was very much in a fixed mindset and ended up converting to a growth mindset. I was smart, but arrogantly so. I often did not undertake new things out of “fear” that I wouldn’t be good at it. And the things that I did do well I would often try to keep with those with “lesser” skills so I could feel better. But once the “switch flipped” and I started thinking in a growth mindset, I started to challenge myself with new things and grew at a much faster rate than before.

I carried that throughout the first 12 years of my career and on reading this book, felt an instant connection to its concepts and believe it is an important starting point for anyone who is in a fixed mindset.

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