The Growth Mindset

The following is a true story. A story I have wanted to share for some time now. 

And I feel that time is now.

1. Premise

In the past I have struggled long and hard with why certain dynamics take place in my life and from a fixed mindset I was unable to change that. My fixed mindset would lead me to believe that everything coming to me was inevitable. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy. As if I had no control over what was happening to me.

From that mindset I traveled the outer circle. I would isolate and alienate myself from others and myself by putting on a mask. The happy-go-lucky mask one day, the engaged mask the other, even the problem-solving mask. That was a good one. While I was having the hardest time to cope with myself I would neglect my own and take care of other people's problems. Surely if I could handle them I could handle myself, right?

This, of course, didn't pan out at all and only magnified my alienation to myself. Increasingly looking at myself from a third person perspective. This caused me to fear contact, further alienating myself and masking my loneliness with meaningless activities. Hours of gaming, going out, losing myself in TV or the internet.

In my mind I had it all figured out. I knew exactly what was wrong with me and how to fix it, but I was clinging on to my misery. For it was known. I was in denial of my state for a very long time. I resented the people around me who, seemingly, breezed through life. I resented the people that wronged me and I resented my peers for being more creative, productive, active and talented than myself. Eventually this led to such an apathy that I was no longer able to conduct any day to day activity. 

I feared going out to do groceries, I distrusted myself, fearing I would buy beer or wine and drink away my self-loathe.I became immune to the people around me, even my kids. I neglected bills, rent, my own health.

In the end I came to one conclusion: either I end it or I finally do what I was supposed to do all along.

So I committed myself to the hospital and went into intense therapy. I was still convinced of my fixed mindset. Still convinced that whatever people said to me, it wouldn't change who I was. Who I was in my eyes: a loser, a terrible father, a poor excuse of a son, a fraud of a brother, an uncommitted partner, an unsuccessful professional, the list went on. 

I went into therapy on September 17th, 2014. And the first two months were tough. I lost my home, I lost the trust of my parents, the faith of my kids and the connection to my brother and sister. For a while I was thinking I had to go about it by myself. Even though I was getting all the support in the world from my surroundings. I got weekly visits from my kids and parents. Still, in my fixed mindset, I felt they distrusted me, they weren't sure of who I was or what had happened to me.

I felt broken, unfix-able to the very core. I was willing to throw out any ambition, any commitment and any responsibility just to remain in a small room with one set of clothes and a sink for the rest of my life. Secretly gloating and wallowing in self pity. Like a character in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest".

At the same time I was sure that I was in the right place at the exact right time. Unknowing to myself I had opened to the possibilities of accepting help and support from others. People I had never before seen in my life. Experts in their field ranging from psychiatric nurses to psychologists, drama therapists and psychiatrists.

They gave me the tools to slowly but surely re-engage myself in life. To rekindle myself to me. To really understand that what I was going through was not something that was wrong with me or broken. It was something I had to accept and embrace. 

I'm not going into detail of every aspect of therapy. One: it is very personal and I believe that this would be a different experience  for each and everyone of us. and two: most of it would bore the hell out of you.

I will recount this experience though.

2. What I learned from therapy

The single most important thing I learned from therapy is something I only recently found out about. Something that hadn't come up during any of the therapy sessions, but something so clearly present in my life right now.

Something so simple, prevalent and undeniably brilliant about the human mind. And it is something we can all do.

Other blogs or sites would push you towards buying an e-book, course or subscription to disclose what this one thing is, but I won't.

This has meant so much to me. It saved my life, put me on the right track and has enabled me to set goals for myself.

That secret, which is no secret at all in fact, is the Growth Mindset. 

Made famous by Dr. Carol Dweck, the Growth Mindset entails that we as humans can reprogram the way we think, act and respond to the issues in our life.

2.1 The fixed mindset

I think it is safe to say that a lot of us feel that the things happening to us seem to be recurring. Often this is triggered by outside events, but the way we process it causes us to seemingly run around in circles. This is because some of us have been thought from a fixed mindset.

Typical examples are the way your teachers, parents, friends and peers interacted with you. Telling you something is out of your league, your intellect or your physical abilities.

As a kid I have been told many times I shouldn't do this or that because it would be impossible to me. I was diagnosed with a brain malfunction in the part controlling the motor function. This caused me to have Achilles tendons that failed to grow with age, in turn causing me to walk on the tips of my toes during the first six years of my life. At age six I was operated, went through a long period of recovery learning to balance and walk again. 

I was told I would never be able to practice sports or do any physical activity for long periods of time. However, growing up I went to the Boy Scouts, played football for three years in the little leagues and in my late teens I got into basketball, becoming one of the city's best street court players, starting a local street court team that went on to win back to back championships. 

Even with those successes though there was still part of my surrounding that only saw my failures. I under performed in school, I hung out with the wrong crowd and I felt disconnected from myself for long periods of time. I felt disconnected because even though my brain always told me nothing was impossible, people were telling me the exact opposite.

Here's another story. 

As a kid growing up, I must have been twelve or thirteen at the time, I was obsessed with economics. This was the crazy eighties remember. Stock markets were coming up and this hype struck Belgium where kids flaunted their wealth by wearing designer labels. I came from a lower class family, where my parents had to really work hard to give us what we wanted. And we wanted it all. I wanted it so bad that I resented kids that had it all: the toys, the clothes, the shoes, the hair, the looks. I was a chubby kid feeling left out. 

The only way for me to feel rich was to learn richness. I started listening to the daily stock forecast, trying to understand the price of gold, the Dow Jones Index and more. In my mind I was able to grasp it all. In my mind I felt I was set for a millionaire life.

But I was kept being told it would be impossible to achieve. I was told to keep in check, to accept the life you are given and to work hard without taking risks. I was told to be content.

Nothing wrong with that, but how can you be ambitious and content at the same time. How can you grow without risk? And how can you learn without failure. Turns out you can't. And I learned this the hard way.

2.2 The Growth Mindset

The conflicts I have had with myself are multiple. My self image was low: I felt too insecure about my sensitivities and I was too afraid to overcome my performance anxiety. On top of that I had a serious conflict of mind. One I only recently found out about.

Turns out that me fantasizing as a kid to become an economist, an actor or a pro ball player were all signs of me possessing the Growth Mindset. This conflict of the Growth Mindset versus the imposed fixed mindset, where I was very clearly told how to go through life and what can and can't be done, got so out of hand within me that I have gone through several periods of detachment in my life. These periods became heavier over time and often paired with alcohol and substance abuse. Something I am not proud of, but have forgiven myself. 

Eventually turning into full blown depressions of which I have had 4 in the last 5 years. And the most recent one being totally catastrophic and lasting for 9 months.

I'm not at all bitter, because all of the events in my life have led up to this moment.

This moment in time where I am accepting that I possess the Growth Mindset and believing that any one can as well!

2.2.1 What is the Growth Mindset?

The Growth Mindset is basically the mindset that enables us to achieve difficult tasks, to solve seemingly unsolvable problems and question the world around us.

It is the mindset that instead of saying "No" it is saying "Not yet!". Imagine how you would have felt as a kid with your fantasies or teen ambitions that instead of being told those would never become a reality, they might...

just, not yet.

2.2.2 If not yet, then when? And "Told you so!"

This would be the first thing to hit you in the face. Trust me. I have had this thrown at me several times. 

If there was any certainty of you, or me, achieving any goal we would be back to the fixed mindset. Where the chance of you achieving are equal to those of you failing. If the chance of you succeeding are 100%, the fixed mindset will have you sit back and watch you achieve. If then you fail, the fixed mindset will say "Told you so!".

"Told you so!", If I were to be given Facebook stock for every time I heard this I would be a jet setting millionaire.

So, how then can we achieve the Growth Mindset? The answer is simple, though the execution is not.

To achieve the Growth Mindset, you need to liberate yourself from the fixed mindset. Liberate yourself from the idea that what you want to accomplish is impossible. Eliminate the doubt to embark on a journey of self exploration. Telling yourself at every bump: "Not yet!".

If you were to question the top successful entrepreneurs, artists, teachers or sports figures today and ask them "What made you achieve your goal?". The answer will always be: "Instead of telling myself "No", I told myself "Not yet!". Maybe not now, but someday!".

2.2.3 Training the Growth Mindset

There are different ways of teaching yourself the Growth Mindset. The most fundamental, hardest but most fulfilling is the mindset of communication.

How you interact with people will greatly affect your understanding of yourself. Of the way your mind works at interpreting signals. Be it cognitive or subconsciously.

Communicating is all about responding, reacting, observing. But we tend to forget that it is also about choice. We have the option to react in a certain way. We can overrule our pre-programmed response by reflecting and making a clear decision to accept the consequences of a certain response. By making that little observation we become aware that every response has a consequence. And we are responsible for that consequence. We have the ability to decide for ourselves how to react to one another. If you simply become aware of that ability, it will change your life.

It will alter the way you look at communication. It will involve you to interact on a conscious level. It will allow you to come to a deeper understanding of yourself and the people around you.

There are more methods and I can help you get to grips with the one that suits you most, but it would require a lot of writing, as I said, for every individual is unique.

But I am at your service. Lectures, personal guidance, online counselling. All are available and if you feel compelled to contact me, then please do.

For now I leave you with my most valuable tip. My daily driver if you will. Below you'll find an infograph explaining the process of connection and independence. The outer circle implies the fixed mindset (for me). in the way I used to deal with myself and those around me. The inner circle implies the Growth Mindset. Moving between the two is the transitional phase. It is the phase that allows you to be decisive in your actions. Take responsibility for them and grow from them.

Remember YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE.

IF NOT NOW, THEN "NOT YET!"

Thanks and see you on the flipside!

B. P.

I made this infograph as a daily reminder of how I am in contact with others around me. 

    Copyright Dirk Trips