Growth Mindset- My Thoughts

I had never heard of Carol Dweck before today, nor had I heard the term "Growth Mindset"; However, the idea has been apart of my philosophy for a long time. As I grew up, my parents always supported me and encouraged me to strive for excellence. My mother always told me I can do great things as long as I applied myself, and I took that to heart. I believe that people can achieve as long as they are willing to work. I grew up with a sense of working for what I wanted. I'm worried that children anymore aren't challenged because their parents are too concerned with protecting them from negative emotions and failure. Failure is a good thing! Failure means, or at least should mean, that you learned something. Growing up being told to fear failure and pain is driving our culture into the dirt.
That's enough ranting from me.

To continue, The biggest lesson I've learned about my learning at OU, is that success isn't something that happens to you. You have to choose it. In classes that I am interested in, I get good grades, regardless of the work load. In classes that I am forced to take because a piece of paper says it's a requirement, I just scrape by, even when it's an easy class. It's because I choose to excel in studies that interest me. Makes me wish I had more interests...

My personal learning goals for this semester are to simply be more engaged with my classes, even when they hold no interest to me. I want to take the advise of my mother to heart and apply myself, not for better grades, but to inspire myself and others to always strive for greatness.

A wise saying from the book of Proverbs that relates to Growth Mindset

Credit goes to Denise Krebs on Flickr. Source: Flickr