You CAN Do _________ (fill in the blank with your hardest class assignment)!

What do you think is the hardest assignment you are required to do? Something in statistics? Writing a college level paper? Whatever attitude or mindset you have plays a large role in how you approach a task considered to be challenging.

from BarnesandNoble.com

Studies by Carol Dweck have shown that mindset has much to do with the ability to accomplish a task.  In Dweck’s (2006) book, Mindset: The Psychology of Success, she informs the reader about “fixed mindsets” and “growth mindsets”.  She explains that “fixed mindsets” view tasks as something that the learner is not smart enough to accomplish, even if they worked hard on it.  Does this sound like something that you may have done with trying to write a paper in APA style or to complete a statistics assignment?  Dweck describes “growth mindsets” as ones in which the learner believes they have the ability to increase their IQ through perseverance and hard work. 

by Reid Wilson@wayfaringpath; Icon from:thenounprojet.com

In Dweck's (2010) article, Even Geniuses
 Work Hard, she points out that having to work at something doesn’t make a person stupid.  Sometimes the most outstanding person is the one who, at first, found the task to be difficult, but through perseverance and hard work, appears to be functioning at the level of a genius.

Next time you think you’ll never be able to write that APA paper or you can't  do those statistics problems, take up the growth mindset; believe you can accomplish the task and work hard to actually do it!

Dweck, C. (2010). Even geniuses work hard. Educational leadership, 68(1), p. 16-20. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership.aspx

Dweck, C. (2006) Mindset: The psychology of success. New York: Ballentine Books.