Every year, right about now, I lose steam with my New Year’s resolutions.  In January I start with such good intentions and a thoughtful, reasonable plan.  But my hopeful fresh attitude begins slipping as reality sets in and my progress plateaus.  With the novelty of doing things differently definitely fading, I hear myself utter phrases that begin with, “I was never good at” or “I just don’t have the talent to.” With resignation and discouragement on the rise, I chalk up my limitations to the inherent qualities of who I am and will always be.  But this year I aim to catch this, what scientist Carol Dweck calls “fixed mindset,” and re-approach my resolutions with a renewed attitude that her research shows will help me push through.

According to Dweck, a Stanford researcher and author of the book Mindset, there are two basic ways to think about our efforts.  One is a non-learning or “fixed mindset” that attributes the cause of our success to what talents or “gifts” we were born with.  It assumes that we can take a test or measure our abilities in a particular area and predict our future achievement.  In this perspective, nature wins out over nurture, and we can only go as far as our set abilities will take us. In a learning or “growth mindset”, we attribute our achievement more closely to the result of our efforts.  Rather than thinking our potential is tied to a given talent or “gift” for something, we calculate our capacity according to what more we can learn.  A growth mindset assumes adaptability and an open ended potential for every individual.

The most interesting part of Dweck’s large body of research is what she found to be the outcome of each mindset, with a growth mindset repeatedly producing more success.  Teachers’ with a growth mindset actually have higher achieving students on average.  They believe that each child can learn and improve, no matter what their starting point is.  Children praised for effort, rather than achievement, will work harder and improve more than children who are rewarded for outcome.  In fact, research shows that believing you are special or naturally talented in some area tends to actually cause people to reduce their effort.  Afraid to expose their weakness, since it’s unchangeable, people with a fixed mindset will take fewer risks out of fear that they will run in to the limit of their talent.

Our mindset effects how we handle setbacks.  If we believe that failure is a result of lack of talent, we will tend to withdraw and lose confidence.  If we believe our failure is a lack of the right effort, we are more likely to respond by staying with the goal and tailor our learning to overcome our obstacles.  Rather than feeling our failure defines us, we will maintain the confidence to keep trying and learn from our mistakes.  American culture tends to favor a fixed mindset.  We assume that you are either good at Math or not, or are an athlete, or not.  Asian culture, on the other hand, is much more growth mindset oriented.  As a result, a typical Math student from Japan will spend almost ten times longer working on a challenging Math problem before they ask for help or give up than an American student.

So, before I give up on my New Year’s goals and conclude they’re not for me, I need to rethink my attitude.  I don’t want to let my fears of being inadequate get in my way or become an excuse, so I need to get a hold of my mindset.  As I shift to a growth mindset, I ask myself what do I need to learn or adjust in order to move forward?  And in fact, as I do this, I notice I feel more hopeful.  After all, there is no deadline for growth.  It can come at any time of year!