Carol S. Dweck Quotes

“Becoming is better than being”

— Carol S. Dweck

We like to think of our champions and idols as superheroes who were born different from us. We don't like to think of them as relatively ordinary people who made themselves extraordinary.

— Carol S. Dweck

“No matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“Picture your brain forming new connections as you meet the challenge and learn. Keep on going.”

— Carol S. Dweck

When people already know they're deficient, they have nothing to lose by trying.

— Carol S. Dweck

“I don't mind losing as long as I see improvement or I feel I've done as well as I possibly could.”

— Carol S. Dweck

In fact, every word and action can send a message. It tells children-or students, or athletes-how to think about themselves. It can be a fixed-mindset message that says: You have permanent traits and I'm judging them. Or it can be a growth-mindset message that says: You are a developing person and I am interested in your development.

— Carol S. Dweck

“In fact, studies show that people are terrible at estimating their abilities.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“If you don't give anything, don't expect anything. Success is not coming to you, you must come to it.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“In the fixed mindset, everything is about the outcome. If you fail-or if you're not the best-it's all been wasted. The growth mindset allows people to value what they're doing regardless of the outcome. They're tackling problems, charting new courses, working on important issues. Maybe they haven't found the cure for cancer, but the search was deeply meaningful.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“A genius who constantly wants to upgrade his genius.”

— Carol S. Dweck

To be successful in sports, you need to learn techniques and skills and practice them regularly.

— Carol S. Dweck

“When you enter a mindset, you enter a new world. In one world
the world of fixed traits
success is about proving you're smart or talented. Validating yourself. In the other
the world of changing qualities
it's about stretching yourself to learn something new. Developing yourself.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“Now consider the idea that they just used better strategies, taught themselves more, practiced harder, and worked their way through obstacles. You can do that, too, if you want to.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“A no-effort relationship is a doomed relationship, not a great relationship. It takes work to communicate accurately and it takes work to expose and resolve conflicting hopes and beliefs. It doesn't mean there is no "they lived happily ever after," but it's more like "they worked happily ever after.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“Mia, what is the most important thing for a soccer player to have?" With no hesitation, she answered, "Mental toughness.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“What's more, it's not as though the fixed mindset wants to leave gracefully. If the fixed mindset has been controlling your internal monologue, it can say some pretty strong thing to you ... The fixed mindset once offered you a refuge from that very feeling, and it offers it to you again.
Don't take it.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“What allowed me to take that first step, to choose growth and risk rejection? In the fixed mindset, I had needed my blame and bitterness. It made me feel more righteous, powerful, and whole than thinking I was at fault. The growth mindset allowed me to give up the blame and move on. The growth mindset gave me a mother.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“Many growth-minded people didn't even plan to go to the top. They got there as a result of doing what they love. It's ironic: The top is where the fixed-mindset people hunger to be, but it's where many growth-minded people arrive as a by-product of their enthusiasm for what they do.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“Math and science need to be made more hospitable places for women. And women need all the growth mindset they can get to take their rightful places in these fields.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“As a New York Times article points out, failure has been transformed from an action (I failed) to an identity (I am a failure). This is especially true in the fixed mindset.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“... see failure not as a sign of stupidity but as a lack of experience and skill.
(Seth Abrams)”

— Carol S. Dweck

“Create an organization that prizes the development of ability-and watch the leaders emerge.”

— Carol S. Dweck

Babe Ruth rose like a rocket. Through discipline. He also loved to practice.

— Carol S. Dweck

“The fixed-mindset premise that great geniuses do not need great teams. They just need little helpers to carry out their brilliant ideas.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“And this is part of the fixed mindset. Effort is for those who don't have the ability.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“The growth mindset also doesn't mean everything that CAN be changed SHOULD be changed. We all need to accept some of our imperfections, especially the ones that don't really harm our lives or the lives of others.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn't mean that others can't do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training”

— Carol S. Dweck

“The effort kids simply thought the difficulty meant "Apply more effort." They didn't see it as a failure, and they didn't think it reflected on their intellect.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“Studies show that people are terrible at estimating their abilities. Recently, we set out to see who is most likely to do this. Sure, we found that people greatly misestimated their performance and their ability. But it was those with the fixed mindset who accounted for almost all the inaccuracy. The people with the growth mindset were amazingly accurate. When you think about it, this makes sense. If, like those with the growth mindset, you believe you can develop yourself, then you're open to accurate information about your current abilities, even if it's unflattering.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“We also know that there is a mindset that helps people cope well with setbacks, points them to good strategies, and leads them to act in their best interest.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it's not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives. A”

— Carol S. Dweck

“You have to work hardest for the things you love most.”

— Carol S. Dweck

Fixed ability that needs to be proven, and a changeable ability that can be developed through learning. That

— Carol S. Dweck

Praising children's intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their performance.

— Carol S. Dweck

But does a growth mindset make people good just at getting their own way? Often negotiations require people to understand and try to serve the other person's interests as well. Ideally, at the end of a negotiation, both parties feel their needs have been met. In a study with a more challenging negotiation task, those with a growth mindset were able to get beyond initial failures by constructing a deal that addressed both parties' underlying interests. So, not only do those with a growth mindset gain more lucrative outcomes for themselves, but, more important, they also come up with more creative solutions that confer benefits all around.

— Carol S. Dweck

“Fixed mindset makes you concerned with how you'll be judged; the growth mindset makes you concerned with improving.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“On the whole, people with a fixed mindset prefer effortless success, since that's the best way to prove their talent.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“In a growth mindset, challenges are exciting rather than threatening. So rather than thinking, oh, I'm going to reveal my weaknesses, you say, wow, here's a chance to grow.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“What did you learn today? What mistake did you make that taught you something? What did you try hard at today?”

— Carol S. Dweck

“Effort is one of those things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“This point is . . . crucial," writes Dweck. "In the fixed mindset, everything is about the outcome. If you fail - or if you're not the best - it's all been wasted. The growth mindset allows people to value what they're doing regardless of the outcome.”

— Carol S. Dweck

Failure is information-we label it failure, but it's more like, 'This didn't work, I'm a problem solver, and I'll try something else.'

— Carol S. Dweck

It is not always people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest.

— Carol S. Dweck

For twenty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value.

— Carol S. Dweck

“Vowing, even intense vowing, is often useless. The next day comes and the next day goes. What works is making a vivid, concrete plan.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“It's for you to decide whether change is right for you right now. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But either way keep the growth mindset in your thoughts then when you bump up against obstacles you can turn to it, it will always be there for you showing you a path into the future.”

— Carol S. Dweck

“Wow, that's a really good score. You must have worked really hard.”

— Carol S. Dweck

A company that cannot self-correct cannot thrive.

— Carol S. Dweck

“More and more research is suggesting that, far from being simply encoded in the genes, much of personality is a flexible and dynamic thing that changes over the life span and is shaped by experience.”

— Carol S. Dweck