Growth Mindset, AKA Self-Imposed Ruthlessness

I've started this post at least five times, and I still can't figure out how to talk about growth mindset, and what it means to me. How to accurately convey the role it holds in my life. How to succinctly explain how I came to the sudden, world-changing conclusion, when I was seventeen, that the most dangerous people are the ones that stretch their limits every day, because they realize that there is no ceiling to the things they can do. Because it isn't a short kind of thing. It's a long-winded, all-encompassing kind of thing. I would have to tell you my life story, and way more about myself than I'm comfortable sharing on the internet.

So I guess I'll just tell you it's important to me, and point you in the direction of some awesome stuff, with some explanations as to how I came to find it?

Thing #1: I used to be a competitive gymnast. For a long time, I thought I was a bad gymnast, because I didn't pick up skills as fast as the other girls, I didn't like competing, I was afraid of trying anything new--the list goes on and on. My coach planted the first seeds of my current understanding of "skill" within me when he gave me this book, which is now most tragically out of print. It's a brilliant, brilliant book. It banned the word "can't" from my vocabulary altogether. We had lots of sayings at my gym: "'can't' is a four-letter word", "the moment you think you can't, you can't", etc.--except my coach was the only one allowed to say them, because every time we gymnasts said the word "can't"--even jokingly--we were assigned fifty push-ups, on the principle that literally the only thing that could possibly stop us from doing a skill was our physical strength. You could always get stronger; you just had to work at it. Getting in the way of yourself wasn't an option; if you were afraid of something, that meant you were obligated to master it.

Yeah, it was a kind of ruthless thing to do to a bunch of preteen girls. But that was how my life was structured, and it affected everything: not just my gymnastics, but my schoolwork, and my relationships, and even how I learned to drive. It was still a structure that was imposed by somebody else, though, and when I was forced to quit gymnastics due to too many injuries (a condition brought on by the fact that I was no longer afraid to try new skills, sometimes with reckless abandon) I had to learn how to impose that mindset on myself. Which lead to...

Thing #2: Enter Maggie Stiefvater, my hero: her ability to do anything, plus her wonderful online presence, ensured that I was never at a loss for inspiration when it came to stretching my limits. I have no idea if she's even heard of Carol Dweck or not, but her philosophy of life is very, very similar to growth mindset: see her early butt-kicking posts on Blogger or the #dubiouslifeadvice tag on her Tumblr for proof. Warning: she sometimes curses. A lot.

(Shameless plug: she writes awesome books, too but I'm sure I've mentioned that before...)

So, onto my goals for the semester, now that we've established I'm really a Growth Mindset Junkie. Let's pick three?
1) I'm taking a lot of classes. Most of them are far above my current levels, and offered in formats I've never seen before. My goal? Work on my time management (due to necessity). Work on my ability to "roll with the changes", as our good friends in REO Speedwagon once put it. Get A's that reflect the effort I put in, and how well I achieved my goals.
2) I've got a job for the semester. I've never had this before. The idea of juggling school and work is terrifying, because I've never done it before. But like a good little ex-gymnast, I'm running straight towards the source of my fear. My goal? Learn to juggle priorities. This is a hurtful task, because I like to be good at everything, and inevitably some priorities tend to overshadow others.
3) There's a lot of writing in this course, and it's fiction writing. My goal? Write more than I ever have before. Explore new writing styles and concepts. And enjoy what I'm writing, because I suck at actually enjoying life during the semester.

And let's leave it on a high note, shall we?

(Proper explanation of bad villainy via Maggie Stiefvater. Copyright 2009)