Growth Mindset: Appreciating Failure

I found this infographic on Diigo but the actual place to find it is here

Although at the time of failure nothing seems too positive, I do know that most of the things that I have learned in my life do come from a trial and error process that includes plenty of my own failures. I know it seems kind of weird for me to say that I learned this from this infographic but I think the 10th note "Failure helps you appreciate success" is something that made me reflect in the sense that I learned it. I never really think about how I do appreciate my successes because of the troubled failures that I have endured. This has inspired my curiosity to reflect more when I do have success and think about which failures I should be thankful for that lead me to the right way of handling things. After reading this I might even try to take some notes on my phone about the failures I have had so that way I can better reflect on the successes that I have and see what lead me to them. Overall, I just liked this image because I have failed sometimes in my school work or even just my character so it made me reflect on how I should learn to appreciate these. I also really liked Thomas Edison's quote from this.

Growth Mindset: Sharing the idea with my room mate

For this Growth Mindset assignment, I choose to talk to my room mate Graham about it all. Basically the way the conversation went was me explaining my outlook on it all him and asking him how he handles things in his life to keep positive and reflect on his daily life occurrences. One thing he told me that he has been trying to do better was realize why he is doing something in moments and whether it will affect him positively or not in the future. I told him that is a good idea and that I should do that with things like studying and what not. Sometimes I will just be doing something and living in the moment which isn't bad but it might not be productive for the future. I also gave him some ideas about reflecting at the end of each day to truly analyze what one can do better for them selves. Overall I'd say it was a positive conversation and he enjoyed listening to the ideas behind Growth Mindset.

I chose this picture because Graham and I got our minds together to have a good conversation about being positive and  proactive. I got it from here . 

Growth Mindset: Daily Habits

When I think about my daily learning habits involving school I realize that best learning I do takes place through isolation. I feel that I must go to an isolated place where I am alone or it is quiet to truly comprehend everything I am learning. I am also the type of learner who learns through repetition. I find that if I write things down and read them multiple times focusing on the things that I tend to forget and maybe why I forget them then I truly learn the material better. In terms of life learning daily habits I feel that most of the time I learn through trial and error. I see how things work out positively and negatively and I try to repeat or adjust depending on what needs to be done. I'm not able to learn everything in one time usually so through repetition, like my studying, I tend to learn how to deal with matters better. I think my most powerful daily learning habit would be my reflection periods. I try to reflect each day on what took place whether it was good or bad. I try to realize that I can make things better in almost every case just through effort but if I reflect on how to do this more strategically it seems to be engraved in my mind better.

This is to symbolize my repetition practices. I found this image on Pixabay. 

Growth Mindset: Cats with Messages.

Stress Cat

Found this picture here.

I liked this one because it made me think of all the times I have been stressed and so I just need a break with friends. No one makes you smile more than your friends and family so I felt this is true. I also thought it was funny because most of the time when you have a friend in the class that you might be stressed for, you end up spending a lot of time talking about how much stress each of you have. 

Success Cat

Found this picture here.

I chose this cat for the purpose of me finding it funny. I thought why would a cat be intrigued by a watermelon and put in the effort to get it out of a lake. I also found it funny because of the facial expression of the cat. Behind the humor I found that this is true. I fully believe that anything someone works for makes them feel more proud of the success that comes with the effort. 

Growth Mindset: W.I.N.

W- Whatever
I-it
N-Needs

I am a full believer in competition and with that I believe in winning so this seemed to make sense in my mind. Sometimes people can win things easily but when competition comes to be difficult I find that people will go to unbelievable methods to win. I'm not saying cheat but find strengths in you that you didn't know you had to be successful. If that means you have to keep pushing forward in studies to "win" on a test then keep going. The same goes for everything. I believe in being competitive and to be a true winner you must dig deep and find whatever it needs to meet the standards of winning.

This is a picture of my Acronym that I created using Canva. The key is to symbolize this is the key to success. 

Growth Mindset: To Risk

A picture I created on Canva to express the meaning of my motto. 

I chose this motto because it is part of my favorite poem by William Arthur Ward. The poem is below.

I learned this poem on a spiritual retreat I took in high school called Kairos. I find it funny how somethings truly hit you in a moment and these words captured me back then and still do today. Although the entire poem is meaningful to me I chose "To live is to risk dying" as my motto for this blog post because in my life right now I feel that I am in my prime condition to live. I want to be doing as much as I possibly can with as many people as possible. I'm a firm believer in risking things and many times it doesn't work out. The true issue in life for me is doubt and regret. I don't want to regret not at least attempting to do something because I doubted it would work out in my favor. I'm not saying to be completely unreasonable but I really don't believe you are living if you don't feel the excitement in the moment. This is why I chose a picture of a man jumping because I have been cliff diving off of extreme heights and never felt more alive. Everyone dies so live in the moments you can.

William Arthur Ward   "To laugh is to risk appearing a fool, To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out to another is to risk involvement, To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self. To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return, To live is to risk dying, To hope is to risk despair, To try is to risk failure. But risks must be taken because the greatest   hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live. Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom. Only a person who risks is free. The pessimist complains about the wind; The optimist expects it to change; And the realist adjusts the sails."

To Live Is To Risk Dying. 

Growth Mindset: Finding Myself Through New Strategies

The following quotes are from past students in relation to the Growth Mindset approach. Under each quote I have applied them to my thinking with the events in my life currently.

"Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and start being excited about what could go right."

This quote seems to fully apply to my life right now. I have been stutter stepping for a long time now about starting to study for my dental exam in order to apply for dental school. I have this feeling that I will under perform due to my lack of test taking skills so I keep putting other things before it. I need to just focus on the fact that I am a smart man who can do anything if I put my mind and effort into it. 

"My biggest challenge when it comes to learning new things is how others perceive me."

Although I normally don't care what people think about me, I will admit sometimes I am afraid of what my parents want from me. I know that it is my life but I don't want to let my parents down when it comes to school work. They don't really put any pressure on me but rather I put it on myself to impress them which isn't always a bad thing but instead I need to start doing things for myself instead. 

"Try out different strategies" 

I can apply this to my life in the sense that I need to try different ways of learning information. I tend to focus mainly on my memorization which can sometimes only be for a little period of time. I need to find better ways to study in order to truly learn something and be able to apply it in a multitude of ways in order to truly use my education for the betterment rather than just trying to get a grade. 

This is a game of chess which involves many different strategies from Pixabay.

My Growth Mindset opinion

I had never heard about Carol Dweck and the "Growth Mindset" theory before today and I have to say I'm slightly embarrassed. Although I have never really been afraid of a challenge, I have also seemed to have taken some easier routes when it came to my school work. When I say easier routes, I really mean not trying to go beyond what is asked of me. Especially when I was younger and went to public schools I never really had a challenge and was typically done with my school work before most of the other kids. This is why my parents moved me to private schools. My parents realized that I needed more of a challenge but to be honest even at that I could have gone farther in some aspects. I was always the kid just looking to get an A as easily as possible as Dweck described in her TED talk.

Now this makes me sound bad, but I would say that I'm normally looking for a challenge myself however it may not be school work always. For example in my sports days I was always pretty athletic until a couple of unfortunate back injuries, but one thing that I did over some of my team mates was work out. I started hitting weights in about the 7th grade pretty hard. I loved challenging myself to new strengths so I would push myself. I did this with school work to in terms of studying to make sure I got A's but honestly there were times things were easier and I should have kept going.

I think Carol Dweck is right about it not always being the mindset but rather the person was conditioned to this thinking of easy work is good work. I think that is also due to time constrictions. It is impossible for each student to be given individual attention at all times so they end up being just left alone because they are not causing any problems. This is an issue because no one is inspiring this smarter child, while the focus is being put on kids who aren't getting the information as easily. Honestly at the University this is bad as well. For my case because everything is so competitive with getting into dental school, I've fallen into the category of just trying to get an A rather than truly learning and expanding my knowledge.

This has inspired me to look more into researching a scientific topic myself and trying to learn the most I can about it just for my own betterment. I would also like to make myself start reading for pleasure rather than just for classes.

This has me excited to learn more about the Growth Mindset through the rest of this course and apply it not only to myself but maybe challenge those around me.

Cat meme found on GrowthMindset Memes blog