Growth mindset: summing up

Today is the end of the (extended) Challenge 2, my 30-day Growth Mindset challenge. Actually I think it was Friday, but I got all mucked up with having a break in the middle of the 30 days and lost track, so as it’s the last day of the month, I’m calling it today.

I haven’t delved into this challenge as deeply as I’d have liked to. I didn’t complete most of the exercises in Carol Dweck’s book that I thought I might at the beginning of the 30 days, so part of me feels like I didn’t give this challenge a fair go.

On the other hand, I’ve continued to identify at least one thing I’ve learned every day, and I’ve spent 30 days learning to draw. That wasn’t what I intended to do at the start of the month, but I think it was a good thing to do – a practical example of how I can apply the growth mindset. I always imagined I couldn’t draw and would never be able to, and my previous attempts have been short-lived.

I’m going to keep doing it.

I think in hindsight I would have picked out the four most interesting chapters in Carol Dweck’s book and set myself a schedule for working through the exercises in them, one chapter each week, rather than just winging it. I really only ended up doing two of the exercises:

  • Making a plan to do something I was afraid I wasn’t good at (Chapter 2) – learning to draw. Well I didn’t so much make a plan, as I just started to do it. Bonus points for just doing it, right? And so you know I’m not making it up, here’s a comparison of my drawing from Day 1 (the pre-test) and Lesson 12 (which took me about 4 weeks to get to).

20160728 Drawing comparison

I needed to have set out a bit of a plan as to what I was going to do for the challenge to make the most of it, so that’s something I’ve learned as I move into my next challenge (Challenge 4). And I do have a plan for that. Sort of. It will be fully formed by tomorrow. Yes, yes it will.

(And as an update to the Evening Routine challenge (Challenge 3), I have signed up for a 5-day Evening Ritual challenge over at Asian Efficiency to get this one kick started again, as I’ve gotten a bit stuck. Stay tuned for further progress! )

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