Believe you can change

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dweck

by bensw • 14 years ago

294 68 14 years ago

aaronsw.com

Millennium• 14 years ago

The most important meme for success is agency: you can make a difference in your life.

But this one -adaptability- is not far behind it. You can make a difference in yourself.

espeed2• 14 years ago

This is a great read, and I believe it's spot on. It's also a perfect example of what Alan Kay means when he says, "We see things not as they are but as we are"..."We can't learn to see until we admit we are blind"..."A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points."

Humility is a key ingredient because it saves you from the mindset of "Success comes from proving how great you are. Effort is a bad thing — if you have to try hard and ask questions, you obviously can’t be very good."

thesash• 14 years ago

I wonder if the phenomenon of growth-mindset vs. fixed mindset is related to an ability to delay gratification, (another trait with a high correlation to succes in children [1]). That is, the "growth-minded" individuals are willing to slog through frustration and failure, because they know the payoff will be greater in the long run, while the "fixies" can't look past the immediate sense of frustration

[1]http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_...

rrmm• 14 years ago

I think it's not just slogging through it, but associating the slogging through it with success. That is at the end to enjoy slogging through it, or at least embrace it as part of the process. That way you don't have to delay gratification completely, just change your attitude towards what is gratifying.

nqureshi• 14 years ago

An experience I had as a teenager really drove this lesson home for me, and is partly responsible for successes I’ve had since.

My Dad had copy of ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain’ by Betty Edwards lying around. I’d always been really bad at drawing - never progressed beyond the kids-drawing phase, got bad feedback on drawing at school, so stopped.

Anyway, Edwards’s theory is that ‘bad’ drawers don’t look at the thing itself and draw its shape, they translate reality into abstract concepts first and then draw what that concept visually looks like. So I’ll look at a face, then decide I’ll draw the ‘eye’ first, query my mind to see what an ‘eye’ looks like, then draw the generic 'eye' shape that everyone draws.

Whereas a skilled artist looks at the eye in front of them - which looks nothing like the standard symbol for ‘eye’ - and draws THAT.

Edwards has a bunch of exercises to prove this, and one of them triggered a massive epiphany for me.

She had a Picasso sketch in the book which was printed upside down on the page. Her instructions were to copy the drawing, keeping it upside down, and never naming the limb/whatever you’re drawing, and never turning your drawing right-side-up until it’s complete.

I was sceptical, but decided to test her theory. So I started copying this upside-down drawing, fully expecting it to turn out even worse than usual.

When I finished, I couldn't believe it. The drawing was AMAZING. It looked like someone else had done it. The figure I’d drawn looked alive.

I went on to learn to draw pretty well. So after that, my mind always looked back and thought - well, if I can learn to DRAW, and I was so BAD at drawing initially, I can pretty much learn to do anything.

sown8• 14 years ago

    ... well, if I can learn to DRAW, and I was so BAD 
    at drawing initially, I can pretty much learn to do 
    anything.

I used to think like that. If I tried hard and applied myself I could do just about anything...until that sort of thing stopped working. It certainly helped but it won't take you to the stars. It just seemed that no matter how hard I tried, I never got better at what I had in mind.

I think this kind of thinking is helpful but it has its ultimate limits, which seem to be set to 'low' for me.

tjr• 14 years ago

I find that interesting. Would you mind sharing examples of some things that you tried to improve at, but couldn't?

ohgodthecat32• 14 years ago

Well I think most of it is time, the whole 10,000 hours thing.

Since we are talking about drawing take a look at MindCandyMan on conceptart.org (His journey sketchbook http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=870)

Post of an example of how far he has come: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1789531#po...

His website showcasing his work: http://www.jonathanhardesty.com/paintings.htm

julsonl• 14 years ago

I tend to have thoughts that maybe I have a genetic disadvantage that prevents me from excelling from things that I care about (programming, computer science, drawing, etc.), but I would rather die with the illusion that I could succeed in anything I set my heart to, than in to throw in the towel and accept that I'm hopeless. Having that mindset is working out for me so far.

6ren• 14 years ago

I read somewhere that it's common for people to plateau at a certain skill level, but some people overcome that. My google fu is not working for me, but I think it was to do with changing the approach. I've also heard of changing how you view yourself, imagining you already have the ability, "what would X do?" (Usain Bolt actually peaked and burned out when was younger, regained with a new coach, less training, and exercises to compensate for a congenital spine defect). i.e. Also, while at a plateau at one specific thing, there are many other things where effort still works (not overgeneralize from that one thing). I'm also plateauing (at discrete mathematics), so I'm interested in the answer here. Many creative people talk about leaving something that they are stuck at, and doing other things (perhaps a short break, perhaps for a long time) - then the answer (sometimes) comes to them, when they see with a new point of view. Talking to people about it can help (even "explaining to a duck").

Of course, maybe there are attributes that we can't change, like height, that seem as insurmountable barrier. While these may be a limitation in themselves, we may be able to work around them (e.g. professional basketball players under 6 foot http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-shortest-nba-players.php). And, well, there are invasive ways to increase height, medically.

agumonkey2• 14 years ago

I started like you but pushed the abstract idea further down to reality. I'm not good and my drawings have a mechanical aspect, or at best a crafted/regular organic style. Later I read the Loomis book, which is filled with delicious drawings of human figures, used the same principles. Use abstract references, refine, analyse.

That said, the idea of abstracting away from abstraction/interpretation is a great one that I never considered

gwern• 14 years ago

+1. I heard about those theories, so I once did an upside-down drawing as well. As promised, it turned out substantially better than a regular copy of mine. (I thought this was impressive, but I didn't have any real need to learn to draw well, so I left it at that.)

gcv• 14 years ago

To be fair, I think drawing is an exceptionally good example of a learnable skill. Is the same true of music, though? If someone has trouble hearing and distinguishing intervals, can that person learn music? What about ballet, which pushes physicality just about as far as it can go?

etruong422• 14 years ago

It's tough to say. It partially depends on how you define the ability to play music. I definitely think that the average person can play notes on a piano given enough time for another average person to enjoy.

On a person-to-person basis, we don't know until we try. Kind of like knowing the half-life of some material: we know the decay rate of a large mass, but we can only guess at a per-atom level, and we only truly know when it finally decays. I don't hope to belittle your question, but I don't find it particularly important what the average person can do. I find it much more important to figure out what I can do.

beagle3• 14 years ago

Is there a reason you believe drawing is a learnable skill? Betty Edwards has shown that it is learnable by actually constructing a curriculum that lifts horribly bad drawers into competent ones.

In an almost identical but betty-edwards free universe, do you have any reason to believe the same?

Do you have reason to believe the opposite about music?

nostrademons• 14 years ago

BTW, ear-training is part of just about any decent music-theory course.

You probably can't give perfect pitch to someone who's tone deaf. You can definitely teach them to recognize intervals, though. In my counterpoint course, there were some people who had terrible pitch recognition at the beginning of the course who were halfway decent by the time it was over.

skybrian• 14 years ago

Yes, it's possible someone might not be able to learn it but I believe this is rare. If you can recognize common tunes from the melody alone, you almost certainly hear well enough to recognize intervals; it's just a matter of practice.

bitsoda2• 14 years ago

My fallback example of overcoming something I thought I never would is playing an F chord on a guitar. Sure, a lot of people can play this easily, but just knowing that there was a time when I thought this was beyond my reach to now being able to play it as well as a C, A, G, E, D, etc chord is a constant reminder to stay in the growth mindset.

wallflower• 14 years ago

> Anyway, Edwards’s theory is that ‘bad’ drawers don’t look at the thing itself and draw its shape, they translate reality into abstract concepts first and then draw what that concept visually looks like.

This is so true.

By squinting one of your eyes (looking through only one eye) you can approximate the 'upside down' effect pretty remarkably.

Drawing is all about the relation of shapes to each other. Portrait drawing is too - but has the additional constraint of very little tolerance for off-by-one errors. Everyone is particularly attuned to facial recognition - lines that are off by even a millimeter or a fraction of an inch (by position or more generally - the angle) - you notice that. It is the difference between a portrait that looks like someone, a portrait that looks like someone else (but not her).

If you want to get better in portrait drawing and don't have the luxury of a live model posing for you, don't draw from pictures. Draw from live TV (like a newscast where the poses are relatively static but still fluid).

I've been taking a progression of art classes for just over a year now. A year is actually a long time in art class world. Really enjoying the escape from coding. It rocks because you lose yourself (like when you are on a focused coding tear). Have gotten much better yet have still so far to go. Have plateaued many times.

In my Portrait Drawing class, the thing that stopped me most was trying to draw what I thought the eye/nose looked like and actually drawing what it looks like. My internal model of what the eye/nose looks like is flawed because I lack experience. As an aside, if you look at other people's portraits of the model - there is usually part of the portrait that resembles them.

The professor was amazing. She could take a blank piece of paper and in 15 min. create the person's portrait, capture their essence. If she worked on it more and more, it got even better. But she got the basic essence in a very short time. She didn't make mistakes in positioning - like most of us in class did (we did get better by the end of the course) - to draw fast - you need to draw very accurately and with confidence. Mistakes can be corrected, up to a point.

If you don't draw the eye as it really looks, you can easily end up with something that looks like an egyptian mummy. There is a very clear orbital socket that needs to be shaded/drawn - without that the eye isn't an eye. Shading is so, so important.

Adding the little stuff to your drawing - like adding a little more shading to the half/side of the pupil that is on the dark side (away from the light) makes a difference. By itself, it doesn't add up, but it makes it look better - when adding all the other little stuff.

Now, drawing in public (e.g. someone's portrait for money in 15 min.) is a whole different ballgame. At least, starting with a controlled environment (precise teacher feedback) is a start. I believe the key is to have the basics down (and basically do a Mr. Potato Head from your experience drawing the basics)

fatalerrorx3• 14 years ago

Awesome article.

I started learning to program when I was in middle school and since that I've pretty much always messed around in the same programming language and it was always fun because I was always learning new and challenging things. Recently though I've found that I wasn't learning as many new things (as frequently) as I once used to and no longer had the same level of excitement that I used to have doing it, so I decided to make a change.

I've always been somewhat afraid of learning new programming languages because it's "new" and "different" and "I might not understand or be able to get it the first time around" but what made me do it is remembering back to when I didn't know anything about computers and how without any books or any help I was able to learn some really cool stuff. I'm now taking that same approach to learn Ruby on Rails, Python, and iOS and plan to go back to school next year to get a degree in Computer Science.

As the saying goes: "If you're not learning, you're dead"

SoftwareMaven• 14 years ago

When I read about this research, it changed the way I raise my kids. Given our society's emphasis on intelligence (and the fact my kids are smart), it was natural to complement them on that. I now go to great efforts to make sure they know that smart alone isn't enough and, when they are putting good effort into something, I acknowledge the effort and not the results. Hopefully it is pushing them towards being "growthies".

Alex3917• 14 years ago

Of the dozens of articles on Carol Dweck that I've read, this is by far the best one. Awesome writeup Aaron.

fsniper2• 14 years ago

Sometimes I believe, Hacker News should have more of this kind of "self hacking" articles. It may seem more like reddit, but it is surely not.

I normally hate self respect, self development books. I feel they are mostly bullshit. HN main page is a great filter for bullshit so I really like these more.

And thinking about change, I also had the introvert/extrovert change for myself. But this was not just me, my friends helped me a lot. If they were not telling me that I was not a problem, but my attitude is a problem. I would never have enough self confidence and would not ever change.

Sometimes I get more introvert, but I know, this is just because I want to be. And whenever I want, I can change.

gliese1337• 14 years ago

I've also gone through the same process of being a strong introvert and learning to be more sociable. And I thought that was a really excellent application of the idea of the growth mindset for the article to point out. But I've gotta take issue with the idea that learning to be sociable is the same as learning to be an extrovert. It's just learning good social skills and learning to enjoy using them despite being an introvert.

I'm pretty well convinced that introversion vs. extroversion is just a part of everyone's neural anatomy, as much as being right-handed or left-handed is. That is somewhat plastic, but it takes fantastic levels of effort to fundamentally change. In/extroversion is a matter of how you think and what drains or recharges your mental energy, not how good you are at interacting in social groups; those things happen to be correlated, but there are some really awkward extroverts as well as really sociable introverts.

fsniper2• 14 years ago

I believe you have pinpointed the issue here. I learned to be more sociable and I'm still introvert. Making the distinction is important. Thank you.

But while having transitions, sometimes I really became extrovert. Mostly I like to hold my issues to myself. But sometimes - with the help of booze - letting go of my thoughts is easier.

crusso2• 14 years ago

But this was not just me, my friends helped me a lot.

The problem is that our neurons are wired to lead us to behave in a certain way. People with addictions and serious dysfunction are often trapped by their own programming and can't just "reason their way out of it". Friends serve as a "leap of faith" mechanism that help you to change the way you think.

If you think you'll reason yourself into making different decisions than your current programming, you'll often be stuck making the same decisions as always. For the really big changes, you need to unplug your current decision-making software long enough to do things you wouldn't normally do.

This is why 12-step programs always have some element of god/spirituality. When people open themselves up to "a higher power", they allow a sort of human meta-programming to rewrite their connections. This leap of faith reason is also why group therapy works so well. You can suspend your normal programming if the steps to get you to where the person next to you in the circle is are small ones.

mej102• 14 years ago

I actually just read this book due to you, aaronsw. Your post on LessWrong where you mentioned it caused me to go out and read it.

I am now aware that ~90% of the people I associate with are very much in the "fixed mindset". It is kind of sad, honestly, because they are all bright people, but you can tell they have essentially stagnated because of their mindset. This includes myself, of course, but I have been slowly realizing the usefulness of the "growth mindset" over the last several years. Now I have a name for it.

Thanks for this. I will be sending your write-up to several of them.

turner_erin• 14 years ago

Great summary and how to apply it to your own life. I find this particularly relevant for entrepreneurs where you must either love the challenge of learning/failure or you will be miserable.

sown8• 14 years ago

I think this isn't a good demonstration of trying hard. These little puzzles only went on for a few hours so a person who is highly intelligent but perhaps not so diligent over a long time won't see bad results in this test. The comments here demonstrates survivor bias.

Furthermore, it's easy to quote Alan Kay about perceiving reality, or non-verifiable comments about 80 IQ points, etc, but what about all the Alan Kay-s who failed that you never heard of, that tried harder or were smarter? What about them? What if no matter how hard you try, how long you try, you still fail?

What about people with learning disabilities? What about people who might be mutants? I.e., in the same way our nearest primate relatives are a few percentage points of DNA different from humans, what if having a few hundredths of a percentage point difference in the right direction, away from me, makes the difference? A thousand years of chimp intellect won't produce an aircraft. A thousand hours of me contemplating won't be the same as someone else who is smarter and contemplates for just ten hours. That's just the way it is. I feel like I know this because I'm on the wrong side of that few-hundredths of a percentage points.

Trying hard is important, and trying hard over many years is also important. But for someone like me, the window is permanently shut as far as what ever biology I have been born with compared to people who excel in ways I simply cannot. Not that I haven't tried. It's just that there are limits on all of us, and this method. Some people, fortunately, have less limits on what they can do.

crusso2• 14 years ago

What about people with learning disabilities? What about people who might be mutants?

Whatever built-in position you're starting from, having the attitude that you can't improve is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A good attitude for wanting and believing in change is healthy no matter how low your IQ is.

espeed2• 14 years ago

It's not just about trying -- it's about your emotional state while you're trying. If you approach hard problems with fear and dread, your mind will be full of the noise that comes with anxiety, and your cognitive functions will be reduced because your dopamine and serotonin levels will be lower than when you're doing something you love.

Furthermore, if hard problems put you in a state of anxiety and fear, you'll probably be inclined to avoid them more than someone who gets excited at the thought of tackling them. But if you can get to a point where you love them, then the whole complexion of things changes.

This has parallels in working out and exercising. One of the best ways to get back in shape is to get to a point where you love working out. When you first start out it's often a chore, but if you can get over that initial hump to the point where you can't wait to get to the gym, then you're golden. If you take two equally out-of-shape people and start them on an exercise program at the same time, and one reaches the point where they love working out and the other still dreads it, which one do you think is going to make the most progress?

Alan Kay's comment about "a change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points" isn't meant to be precisely verified, it's meant to emphasize that mindset/perspective can be as important or more important than raw IQ horsepower. This study is one example of why that's true.

mej102• 14 years ago

There are limits. You cited some very obvious ones.

I have no idea why you think that you are among the "catastrophically limited" as I will call them.

You presumably can program a computer based on your comment history. This puts you firmly in the "not really limited by IQ" camp. You may never be a Terrance Tao of John von Neumann, but every other level of achievement is probably available to you.

Even your own self knowledge of skills puts you above most people I work with. When it comes to overall competency, knowing that you aren't very good at programming puts you above many programmers I know.

Just browsing through your comment history it really seems more like you lack direction for getting better.

You didn't even answer someone's direct question toward you, a question that can really help you focus and find the direction you need to improve: "What are you working on now?"

Assuming that you don't have an answer for that question: I think I found your problem.

sown8• 14 years ago

> You didn't even answer someone's direct question toward you, a question that can really help you focus and find the direction you need to improve: "What are you working on now?"

I didn't see it.

My day job leaves me pretty drained. Aside from that, I've been learning more about web-app programming. I allegedly do embedded and kernel work now for a large network hardware vendor so I realized a while ago I need to spread my wings so to speak.

jfoutz• 14 years ago

If it's any consolation, Alan Kay still credits some unknown airforce programmer for the invention of OO programming. He just saw a good idea and ran with it.

On the other hand, you might look at Van Gogh. he tried his whole life then died unknown and penniless. He was told his whole career to give up painting and do something respectable.

I think the best a random person can can hope for is to do something they enjoy. We all have our little victories and losses. What's more tragic, Van Gogh, or the miner that wanted to paint and resented every day of work?

wmat• 14 years ago

"Mindset" by Carol Dweck is one of the greatest books I've ever read. Sadly though, I didn't discover it until the age of 41.

Of equal value is "the War of Art" by Steven Pressfield.

In my opinion, these are the only two "self help" styled books anyone needs.

Apocryphon• 14 years ago

What's the latter book about?

salemh• 14 years ago

The creative process of writing, which trends to anything creative which needs "shipping." The difference between an "amateur" who dabbles at writing, and a professional, the power of pushing through and consistency to complete projects (ship). Additionally, a theory on why we try to hard to procrastinate away from the things we either know, or want, we would do.

Very direct, a bit of "muse" hokiness which most readers I've given the book to can deal with or understand (it is a foil for the author, not a belief). He was a man who failed until his late 40's? or some such, and it is extremely motivating and direct in its instructions.

from Amazon:

"Drawing on his many years' experience as a writer, Pressfield (The Legend of Bagger Vance) presents his first nonfiction work, which aims to inspire other writers, artists, musicians, or anyone else attempting to channel his or her creative energies. The focus is on combating resistance and living the destiny that Pressfield believes is gifted to each person by an all-powerful deity. While certainly of great value to frustrated writers struggling with writer's block, Pressfield's highly personal philosophy, soundly rooted in his own significant life challenges, has merit for anyone frustrated in fulfilling his or her life purpose. Successful photographer Ulrich (photography chair, Art Inst. of Boston; coeditor, The Visualization Manual) explores the creative impulse and presents an approach to developing creativity that, like Pressfield's, will be relevant to artists and others. He identifies and explains seven distinct stages of the creative process: discovery and encounter, passion and commitment, crisis and creative frustration, retreat and withdrawal, epiphany and insight, discipline and completion, and responsibility and release. He also develops his view of the three principles of the creative impulse, which include creative courage, being in the right place at the right time, and deepening connections with others. Rooted in Eastern philosophy, Ulrich's fully developed treatise nicely updates the solid works of Brewster Ghiselin (The Creative Process), Rollo May (The Courage To Create), and Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way). It also supplements Pressfield's inspirational thoughts on overcoming resistance through introspective questions and practical exercises that further elaborate the creative process. Both books are recommended for public libraries needing additional works on creativity."

AceJohnny2• 14 years ago

I actually found "Mindset" underwhelming and couldn't finish it.

I noticed that I do have the growth mindset... in certain areas of my life. In others I need to remind myself of it. I found Dweck's binary/black-and-white description of "growth" vs "fixed" mindsets to be contrived and unconvincing, and ended up putting the book down, feeling I hadn't learned anything new.

baby• 14 years ago

I'm interrested. Why are they so good books?

swanson• 14 years ago

Aside from the book recommended in the post, Learned Optimism by Seligmen is another dealing with "learned helplessness" and how to combat pessimism. It frames the struggle as optimist vs pessimist instead of growth vs fixed mindset.

scotch_drinker• 14 years ago

This reminds me a lot of what I learned from the book, Flow. That author talks about what makes people happy and the common thread is intrinsic motivation to continually learn and grow. This current article isn't saying that anything is possible if you work hard. I like to think we all have an achievement continuum given to us by our genes that is unfortunately then artificially restricted when we say "I can't" or "I never had a good rememory". If you set your personal goals somewhere outside your physically possible achievement continuum, no amount of work will ever result in success. But identifying your continuum and then being aware enough to approach roadblocks as growth opportunities will result in great success. I think the chance of ever reaching the end of your physically capable achievement continuum is far more rare than those of us who spend large amounts of time artificially restricting that continuum by not even trying.

datalus2• 14 years ago

I don't know if anyone else has had this experience, but for awhile in my teens to early 20s, I strived really hard to be a good musician. Everytime I would notice a marked improvement, I would have this almost excruciating sense of being overwhelmed. It was like almost forcing me out of reality, because I couldn't simply believe it. Sure enough, though, the next day I'd work on music I would be at a different level of sorts and would be on to tackling the next challenge.

Due to the fact that music doesn't really pay all that well, and I went for a comp. sci. degree, I've ended up as a software developer. What I'm starting to notice now, though, is that I haven't really had the same experience with developing my technical chops as a developer. I think I need to find more interesting projects outside of work to really scratch that creative itch.

jerf• 14 years ago

This is where the "learn a language in a different paradigm" advice comes in. And do a non-trivial project in it. It shouldn't be enormous, but it needs to be non-trivial.

datalus2• 14 years ago

Yep, I just started diving into Clojure. It's really been a shift for me, even though I took a class in Haskell. I still haven't totally internalized the functional paradigm. I'm really eager to see how it changes my understanding of the current crop of languages I use (C#, Java, Ruby).

ntide• 14 years ago

This article precisely explains what John Carmack was like as a kid.

prophetjohn• 14 years ago

I think it's important for a lot of people to realize that it's possible to be a growther in certain aspects of your life and a fixie in others. As I was reading the article, I thought about how I approached problems like learning new programming languages and solving logic puzzles and such and I thought to myself "cool, I'm totally a growther!" But as I read on and read about the authors social growth and realization that "introverted" is not a permanent state of being, I realized that in this area I'm a complete fixie. My next growth project should probably be to convince myself that a compiler error message is no less offensive than acting awkward in a group of people you don't know.

is74• 14 years ago

These findings should not be misinterpreted, since it is indeed impossible to reach any goals. A person in their late 20s is extremely unlikely to become an olympic swimmer or a squash player because of physical limitations. And some people will relentlessly try and never succeed.

But believing that you can change is useful because it makes it easier to persist in my efforts to change. Because if I believed that change is impossible, I'd give up on the spot.

I found that I simply cannot believe a statement like "I can get much smarter" or "I can get much better at X", but I found that I can easily (fully, honestly, without reservations) believe that "I can get a bit more smarter", or "my intelligence is sufficient for mastering this material, so I need to push harder", or "I can get at least a bit better socially." These beliefs motivate me and make it easy for me to do the work even when it looks like progress is nonexistent. This is the meaning of believing that you can change.

bitsoda2• 14 years ago

I keep an image in my Pinboard that reminds me of this whenever I begin slipping into the fixed mindset. I think it succinctly summarizes Dweck's observations.

http://i.imgur.com/QUsvJ.jpg

opminion• 14 years ago

Carol Dweck was obsessed with failure. [...] So she began watching kids [...]

Scientists rarely proceed that way.

andrelaszlo• 14 years ago

You know how some people just seem to succeed at everything they do, while others seem helpless, doomed to a life of constant failure?

I never noticed that, except in greek tragedies.

Believe you can change

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