Quotes About Self-improvement

Beware of success. It can knock you into a fixed mindset.

when people already know they're deficient, they have nothing to lose by trying.

Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better?

The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it's not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.

Is there something in your past that you think measured you? A test score? A dishonest or callous action? Being fired from a job? Being rejected? Focus on that thing. Feel all the emotions that go with it. Now put it in a growth-mindset perspective. Look honestly at your role in it, but understand that it doesn't define your intelligence or personality. Instead, ask: What did I (or can I ) learn from that experience? How can I use it as a basis for growth? Carry that with you instead.

Success is about being your best self, not about being better than others; failure is an opportunity, not a condemnation; effort is the key to success.

What allowed me to take that first step, to choose growth and risk rejection? In the fixed mindset, I had needed my blame and bitterness. It made me feel more righteous, powerful, and whole than thinking I was at fault. The growth mindset allowed me to give up the blame and move on. The growth mindset gave me a mother.

The students with growth mindset completely took charge of their learning and motivation.

The growth mindset also doesn't mean everything that can be changed should be changed. We all need to accept some of our imperfections, especially the ones that don't really harm our lives or the lives of others.

Is there something you've always wanted to do but were afraid you weren't good at? Make a plan to do it.

There was a saying in the 1960s that went: "Becoming is better than being." The fixed mindset does not allow people the luxury of becoming. They have to already be.

We also know that there is a mindset that helps people cope well with setbacks, points them to good strategies, and leads them to act in their best interest.

We can choose partner, make friends, hire people who make us feel faultless. But think about it – do you never want to grow? Next time you're tempted to surround yourself with worshippers, go to church.

CEOs face this choice all the time. Should they confront their shortcomings or should they create a world where they have none? Lee Iacocca chose the latter. He surrounded himself with worshipers, exiled the critics—and quickly lost touch with where his field was going. Lee Iacocca had become a nonlearner.

Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them?

They were self-effacing people who constantly asked questions and had the ability to confront the most brutal answers—that is, to look failures in the face, even their own, while maintaining faith that they would succeed in the end.

in the fixed mindset, you don't take control of your abilities and your motivation. You look for your talent to carry you through, and when it doesn't, well then, what else could you have done? You are not a work in progress, you're a finished product. And finished products have to protect themselves, lament, and blame. Everything but take charge.

The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it's not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset.

Next time you're tempted to surround yourself with worshipers, go to church. In the rest of your life, seek constructive criticism.

When Jordan was cut from the varsity team, he was devastated. His mother says, "I told him to go back and discipline himself.

What are the consequences of thinking that your intelligence or personality is something you can develop, as opposed to something that is a fixed, deep-seated trait? Let's first look in on the age-old, fiercely waged debate about human nature and then return to the question of what these beliefs mean for you.

Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character—well, then you'd better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. It simply wouldn't do to look or feel deficient in these most basic characteristics.

Algo importante que he aprendido en mi investigación es que con la mentalidad de crecimiento no siempre se necesita tener confianza.

Yesterday they were hotshots; today they're failures. Here's what happens. They look at the faculty with our long list of publications. "Oh my God, I can't do that." They look at the advanced students who are submitting articles for publication and writing grant proposals. "Oh my God, I can't do that." They know how to take tests and get A's but they don't know how to do this—yet. They forget the yet.