Problem
I. When do you feel smart? When you're doing something flawlessly or when you're learning something new?
II. Grow Your Mindset: How can you make striving, stretching, and struggling into something that makes you feel smart?
III. Can you think of a time you faced an important opportunity or challenge with a fixed mindset? What were your thoughts and worries - about your abilities? About other people's judgments? About the possibility of failure? Describe them vividly.
IV. Grow Your Mindset: Now, can you take that same opportunity or challenge and switch into a growth mindset? Think of it as a chance to learn new things. What are the plans and strategies you're thinking about now?
V. Do you use feeling bad as a reason for doing nothing? When you feel disappointed, thwarted, cheated, or depressed do you use this as a reason to stop trying?
VI. Grow Your Mindset: What steps could you take to help growth mindset thinking overcome your fixed mindset? Discuss a specific plan.
VII. Is there something in your past that you think measured you? A test score? A dishonest or callous action? Being fired from a job? Being rejected. Focus on that thing.
VIII. Grow Your Mindset: Now put it in a growth-mindset perspective. Look honestly at your role in it, but understand that it doesn't define your intelligence or your personality or anything else about you. Instead, ask: What did I (or can I) learn from that experience? How can I use it as a basis for growth? Carry that with you.