3 Essential Mindsets they don’t teach you in school
Why you need to change how you think every day
As I’m going into my final year of elementary school, I’ve realized, there’s something essential for success in our everyday lives that we’ve never even touch on in our curriculum.
We are only taught what to think, not how to think.
With more time to do whatever I wanted, I started thinking, if no one is going to teach me this fundamental part of learning, I might as well just do it myself.
That’s how I was introduced to the amazing world of mindsets. A range of tons of ways of thinking I never really thought I actually embody daily.
After my deep-dive, 3 mindsets really stuck out:
- Growth Mindset
- Figure-it-out Mindset
- Stoicism Mindset
These mindsets are very valuable, and I’ve been starting to integrate them into my life. For those of you who also feel that this has been missing in your education, this is a simple guide of clear action items to implement.
🧠 GROWTH MINDSET:
What is a Growth Mindset?
A growth mindset when people believe that their learning capabilities are not limited. They think that hard work and learning new things will help them grow. These people also tend to worry way less about showing other people if they are smart.
They do the opposite because it’s about their growth, whether people acknowledge it or not. They love challenges because they know, each time they fail, there will be a learning curve.
A fixed mindset is the opposite of everything I just said about the growth mindset. They stay away from failure. They don’t try challenges because there is a chance of failure. If they do something and succeed, they most likely will want to show it off. And each time they fail, it discourages them and sometimes makes them never want to try that ever again.
Now, if you have understood everything I said so far, here is a pretty common example that might help you understand better.
How many times have you heard the phrase:
“I'm not a math person”
Let me guess, a lot (well, I certainly have). There is no such thing as being a math person. Just because I’m learning math attentively doesn’t mean I am a “math person.” If you’ve ever heard someone say that, or maybe you’ve said it yourself, it’s okay.
I want you to predict whether you think, “I’m not a math person” statement is a growth or fixed mindset scenario. Use what you know about the two from the parts above.
If you guessed correctly, then you are correct. So suppose you are that person, and now with the knowledge that you know what a growth mindset is, try converting that statement to a growth mindset statement (use the picture above for some inspiration!)
If you try this challenge, you have a growth mindset because you know that it’s okay even if I got it wrong. After all, it doesn’t matter. If you didn’t come up with an answer, it’s probably that you didn’t want to try and just wanted to see the real answer.
But anyway, one way you could reword this statement would be, “I find some concepts of math challenging but, these challenges can help me grow.” Your answer does not have to be that long but tries to make your answer that applies to the concept of a growth mindset
We use our minds every day to reply to messages or calculate a complex math problem. In both situations, we have different attitudes towards them. If you are messaging someone, it’s not easy, but it requires less mental effort because it’s not really a challenge. On the other hand, when you solve a math problem, you must put in more effort, leading you to give up occasionally.
Why is a growth mindset important?
After seeing what this mindset is, why is it important to know about it? This mindset actually can almost change your decision-making in a whole new way. A growth mindset enables you to try new things and be more comfortable when doing different things.
For example, suppose you do not like roller coasters. The first time you go on one, it wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be. Slowly you try and more of them to see that you actually love roller coasters. Eventually, you don’t even have to mentally prepare for going on one because it seems less scary than when you started and never gone on one.
Basically, what I’m trying to say, that trying new things will seem easy. The challenges you will face won’t be as complex because you know that it will be okay even if you make a mistake. If you do this, you will gain more from experiences and grow from anything you do.
What can I do to achieve a growth mindset?
I could plainly just tell you do not have a fixed mindset, but really, when you have a fixed mindset, you don’t know yourself unless you know what to do.
The three main steps to achieve a growth mindset is
- Put in the effort to actively change your thinking
- Accept challenges with a can-do attitude
- Accept feedback and criticism as a gift
To put in the effort, you need to constantly remind yourself that your learning counts, and if you really stay focused, you will get the outcome you want (even if you don’t get it right away).
If you want, you can ask a friend or someone you are close to to help out. They can remind you if you act like you have a fixed mindset; they can tell you that this is an opportunity to learn even if you fail.
You need to accept the challenges and not just give up because it looks too hard. If a baby only knew how to crawl and said walking is too hard, they won’t learn how to do it.
If the baby grew up and always just said that walking was too hard, it would be living a very inefficient way of life since walking is more efficient than crawling. You won’t know until you try.
Lastly, you need to learn from criticism and feedback. Just because you did wrong doesn’t mean it’s time for you to give up. You will never be perfect, but you can try harder and harder to get close to it.
There is always room for improvement only if you accept it. Once you do that, you can learn and be better the next time you encounter that challenge.
Right Now…
I am in school currently, grade 7 and about to go to grade 8. From these years of school, I’ve seen so many kids say that the curriculum is too “complicated”, resulting in giving up. But I don’t think, not once, the teacher said or tried to help that student out.
Until recently, I didn’t even know what a growth mindset was because I limited myself to school. I thought school was where I learned, and that’s it. But now, even now when we know this information, schools haven’t really implemented any of this.
I’ve asked teachers in the past questions like “why don’t they teach this in school?” and I also asked that question about my mindsets. I was surprised to hear my teachers answer, saying that some teachers find it hard or think it takes time out of class.
(add mind-blowing emoji) I was shocked because those teachers probably said that they find it hard or just don’t want to, literally have a fixed mindset. Who is going to teach the teachers?!?!
The teachers are teaching us based on their attitudes which we students sometimes look up to.
If you’ve seen, some teachers occasionally support “smarter kids” and ignore others because they are not “ahead.” If you use common sense, the teachers should be doing the opposite. This discharges the students, and the teachers almost reinforced a fixed mindset in the class.
Recently, I’ve seen some classes talking a bit more about this mindset, but it’s not applied every day.
Short term vs Long term
From a short-term perspective, you don’t really care what others think in school, and you will learn effectively. You will not find it challenging as you will have more fun even if it is a challenge. Habit development leads to a long-term change because as you practice it, the better you can get at it.
In the long term effect, you will feel more confident and say that you can accomplish more things. You will constantly be challenging yourself to go above and beyond. This growth mindset will spread to every part of your life, and your attitude towards something will be completely different.
👩🏽💻 FIGURE IT OUT MINDSET
What is a figure it out mindset?
A figure-it-out mindset is when you are resourceful and don’t just give up because you don’t know what you’re faced with. These people usually do anything you can do before asking for help. Once you have tried, you can reach out to people that can help you directly without wasting your time.
Even with the fantastic internet available basically, anywhere, people still resort to just saying that they cannot do it. This means you have a lazy mentality because you tend to just give up writing.
A figure it out mindset is not an ability; it’s an attitude.
Suppose you don’t know anything about writing articles (maybe you actually do in real life). If I were to ask you how to write a good article, how would you respond? If you would say, “I don’t know,” try again. If you searched it up, you would have found so many results by typing exactly what I just said. (here is an actual link to if you searched that up, just if you are curious: https://bit.ly/35HS131 )
My point is, you just need to do it as soon as you are encountered with a problem or question. Use anything that is in your power to do before asking for help.
Why is it important?
A figured-out mindset is very important in our everyday lives. Sometimes you even do it unconsciously. Eventually, as it becomes a general practice, it will seem easy and something very natural.
This mindset takes effect on your learning capabilities as you will learn more if you take action. With the wonderful world of the internet, we can do this quickly compared to many years back.
Action Items:
To achieve the figure it out mindset, it’s similar to a growth mindset because you need to have a positive attitude to learn new things first.
- Self-confidence
- Take action
- Self-reliance
So first is self-confidence. You need to learn that failing leads to growth. The more times you try to figure something out, the more you know. This doesn’t mean you should just fail again and again but keep in mind if you do, it’s okay.
Taking action is super important. Nothing can happen if you don’t make it happen. There are so many resources that you can use at any time to have this mentality; books, the internet, people, and so much more. If one option doesn’t work, you can try something else; it’s not that hard because you can try different approaches!
Tip: pretend you have to do it, don’t give up after 1 try
Then there is self-reliance, you don’t always have to rely on yourself, but you should try your best to do whatever is in your power before asking someone for help. If you have done that, ask people you know that have knowledge in that field.
For example, if you see something wrong, you should search it online. You’ll probably find different answers, and maybe one applies to you. Just to be sure, you should ask a regular doctor, but you should ask your eye doctor because they will have more knowledge to help you.
Right Now…
Personally, this was probably the easiest mindset and hardest mindset for me to achieve. That’s primarily because of school.
School just gives you the answers instead of letting you figure it out. I’m not just talking about math problems because they allow us to figure it out there, but I’m talking about skills. Simple things like asking the teacher if it’s not in the resources.
Teachers give the answer, but instead, they should say to figure it out. It’s easy to do that, but some students are not. They could suggest things like to look it up, refer to resources given, so it becomes a habit.
You might say, “but a teacher’s job is to teach you subjects like math and science.” Actually, they are there to teach you, and if they are teaching you a wrong skill, you get in the habit of doing things wrong.
It’s not just wrong in the moment but affects it because this mindset is a life-long mentalist. It gets programmed into you, and it’s hard to turn that function off.
Short term vs Long Term effects
In a short-term aspect, once you slowly get the hang of this mindset, things will be easier to face. When you encounter challenges, you’ll know what to do because you can easily use resources instead of just your brain.
This mentality will be with you forever in a long-term aspect, and you won’t even have to remind yourself to use this mindset. It will become a habit every day.
Figuring out smaller things will help you out when you are trying to figure out bigger things. The short term leads to the long term, and that’s what links them together to make an impact.
🕯Stoicism Mindset
What is the Stoicism Mindset?
Stoicism is a way of thinking. This mindset is when you don’t complain about things not necessarily in your control. This mindset is to train you to accept what is happening and not show your emotions negatively.
This mindset comes from a school of psychology called stoicism from the early 3rd century BC. This school focused on values based on how we view the world. Their goal was to help people live their life based on what they value and maximize their happiness.
One thing you should mix up is having a stoicism mentality and being stoic. A stoic is a person who almost has no emotion and doesn’t feel what is happening at the moment. They always hide their feelings even though they think them. A social mentality is a dimmed version of being stoic because you can show your feelings but controlled versions of it.
The main goal for this mindset is to attain inner peace and have a fulfilling life. The 4 principles of stoicism are wisdom, justice, courage and moderation. These four principles work together to create a balance and mental wellbeing for anyone.
This mindset is more emotional-based because the past two mindsets I discussed were more about physical.
Why is this mindset important?
The stoic mentality can help you master your emotions and focus more on the present. The Stoics believed that forgetting the past and future feelings can help us stay present and feel what we want to feel current.
This process clears your thoughts and can make you more focused on whatever you are doing. This can help every day since you will have less to stress about. With this mindset, you don’t worry about things that you don’t have control over.
Action items
To achieve this mindset, there are three steps you need to follow:
- Accept what you can’t change
- Think before acting
- Don’t worry about others and focus on you
So first is to accept what you can’t change. We often stress about or worry about a lot in our life even though we can’t change them. Even if we know this, why do we take the burden of this emotion? It gets formed by a habit of worrying, but we need to take that out and accept that we can change it. Accepting what you cannot change helps us see our life from a different perspective and makes us know what we can change, which leads us to take action.
Thinking before acting or feeling is a very important part of having this mentality. This means necessarily before you act or do anything, think about if it’s worth it or not. For feeling something, there are many ways we can change that.
TIP: An app called “stoic” is amazing for this process of reflection and controlling your emotions
Recently I saw a technique that stoics use to think clearly or ignore things. Basically, if you just imagine a quiet place. Somewhere that you like and feel calm. It could be a sunset, or it could be your home. Imagine you sitting or standing there and taking in everything. Imagine what you would smell, feel, see, and hear. If this doesn’t help, recall a song you really like.
The whole purpose of this technique is to distract you from what you are thinking momentarily and let you come back to the present. This allows you to make a rational decision with a clever mind.
The third step is to not worry about others and focus on yourself. This means that you need to master yourself before you care about other things in life.
This whole step is about self-control and helping your current state. Like the first step, you need to accept it and then learn how to control it. This can be done using journaling. The stoics focused on writing down how they felt and reflecting to let go of the feelings they had to stay present.
They also used many different types of meditations, but you should see whatever works best for you. You can try guided meditations, breathing exercises, and many more forms but try a few to decide what you can do.
Tip: “Waking up with Sam Harris” is a good meditation app!
Right Now…
Schools just generally don’t really focus on mindfulness, and that is kinda a big thing. Personally, my friends have said that meditations don’t work or that it’s boring, but actually, it’s very beneficial to control and accept your emotions.
Many people and younger generations, in general, are a bit ungrateful (not all of them, though). The mentality for stoicism is generally focused on your emotions, and mastering them can take time if you have a growth mindset.
Schools should at least integrate some part of mindfulness because anxiety has increased so much in teens and kids in general. Many of the times, others care what people think, and that makes them stressed. This makes them not focus on their emotions, and stoicism can really help with that.
Short term vs Long term
From a short-term perspective, you will start to master the art of stoicism, but it is hard to have a whole mentality. People are often faced with challenges that come with stress. Having a stoicism mindset can really help manage their emotions in a whole different way.
From a long-term perspective, it will take time to master stoicism but once you get the hang of it, it will be easier to integrate. This way you will be able to live a fulfilling and happier life.
I hope this gave a good understanding of all three of these key mindsets and that you integrate them into your life!
Thank you Danny Forest for inspiring me to create the mindmaps for the mindsets! Check out his cool article “8 Important Skills to Learn in just under 8 hours”.
If you are interested in learning more about mindsets, every week, I will be publishing a “Mindset Mini” talking about a mindset I tried to embody during the week.
If you enjoyed this article, give a round of applause. Make sure to check out some of my other articles.
:)
