Week 8 Growth Mindset

To start off, I love the growth mindset! When I watched the video with Carol Dweck and how she went over the studies involving the children, I was impressed to say the least. I found this especially interesting because I am a Communication major and this reminded me of linguistic determinism. Linguistic determinism is basically the idea that our ways of talking/speaking shape our reality or how we perceive reality. So, the way that the growth mindset works makes perfect sense to me and I have no problem getting on board with this idea!

Now, as it relates to myself personally, I am not perfect and after careful self-reflection I have realized that there are a lot of areas that I need to work on in my life. In my different classes, I work harder in my Communication classes and I'm more willing to go the extra mile in order to produce better work. I'm sure that this stems from the fact that it's my major, but when I consciously thought about this, it kind of bothered me, because I like to perform my best in everything that I do. So, that's definitely an area that I'm going to work on now that it's salient to me.

In school vs. work, I don't like things to change at work, but I do like change at school. I also realized that I do the minimum or close to the minimum unless I'm told otherwise. This is in part because it's a part time job that requires minimal cognitive load, but it is an area that I can work on as well. I think that working on this area in my life will be beneficial because I think that if I continue to improve in every of my life, I will be overall better as a person.

In my personal life, I strive to be the best that I possibly can be! With that in mind, I know that this can be a double-edged sword as well because if you're constantly trying to be the best, you risk the chance of enjoying the little things. Sometimes I get so caught up in work and trying to improve my efficiency that I forget to have fun. My fiancé will tell you that I'm always working and we have had a couple of arguments that happened because I spend a lot of time working. She thinks that we need to spend more time together and with our families, especially since we'll be moving this year to go to Virginia for my officer training.

With all this in mind, I think I can build on my strengths by putting forth my best effort during the daylight hours so to speak, and spending time with my fiancé during the rest of the time. In school, I could allot more time to my other classes so that I'm performing my best all around. Finally, at work I can expand myself and learn more about the place I work for so as to give myself more of a motivation to work since I will know their history and will be able to possibly share some values.







Image: Bruce Lee goal quote