Fixed Mindet Has Affected My Life

How your mindset can affect your life.

I believe if you have a fixed mindset it’s never too late to change and adapt to a growth mindset. The growth mindset will lead you to try new things but a fixed mindset will stop you in your tracks causing you only to fail. The type of mindset you have is very important because it will influence your life in many ways. What is the difference between a growth and fixed mindset? Well a growth or positive mindset leads to a desire to learn and therefore a tendency to embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, see effort as the path to mastery, and learn from criticism, and find lessons in the success of others. As a result you will reach even higher levels of achievement. A fixed or negative mindset leads to a tendency to look smart at any cost. Therefore a tendency to avoid challenges, give up easily, see effort as fruitless or worse, ignore useful negative feedback, and feel threatened by the success of
others. As a result you will plateau early and achieve less than your full potential. Some of the ways a positive mind set affected my life happened early in my life.
For example when I was ten years old I went to camp seven hills and took on archery. It was really hard but I learned it very quickly and never gave up. When I got home from camp I asked my dad if I could go hunting with him once I was old enough and he told me girls cant hunt we are too weak. Because I had a growth mindset I never gave up I practiced without my father every day for three years. I got my hunting license when I was thirteen and went with my friend mike and his parents to their cabin in Olean NY. It was really cold out that day I remember shaking while perched up in my tree I wanted to give up so bad but I wanted to prove my dad wrong and show him that girls can hunt. Finally a 8 point buck walks in my range I got my bow ready and breathing slowly I pull back the arrow aim for the kill spot let go WAMM right threw his lungs. I was so excited knowing I just proved to my father that I can do anything I put my mind
to. After I turned fifteen I started to develop more of a fixed mindset towards school which affected my life in many ways. It all started with failing one test and my life spiraled downhill from there. It was 2003 and I thought I was on top of the world I could pass any test without studying and I thought I knew everything, but what I didn’t know is how this stuck up attitude was going to change my life in a huge way. I walked into my class head in the clouds sad down and looked at my test “spelling ha this is going to be easy” I muttered. I flew through the test handed it in and walked out. The next day I got to class and my teacher handed me my test my

jaw dropped “this has to be a mistake I couldn’t of got only a 63% on my test you had to grade it wrong” I yelled to the teacher. She gave me detention for yelling at her in class but I didn’t bother going I was so mad. I started skipping school and going to parties because at this point I started not to care anymore. When I got home one day my dad grounded me because the school called him and mentioned my behavior to him. I was so mad I ran away from home and started drinking and doing drugs. This caused me to get put in a detention center when I was sixteen and when I got out I moved in with my mother because she didn’t care what I did. Now twenty-three I have started to work at getting back into a positive mindset so I can be a good role model for my daughter. In order for someone to adopt a growth mindset, they would have to care about what their mindset is, understand why they act the way they do, and understand that they can change, and the reason for change, which would be to become a better person, which they would also have to care about. Our mindset will affect us in many ways and it can also affect the people around us which are why we should try to keep a growth mindset.