The human brain is a three pound, complex organ in the human body that controls all functions of an individual and interprets all sorts of information. As it is known that no individual is the exact same as another, this means that every brain functions a lot differently as well. Although ultimately the only one that has control over their life is themselves, other people greatly have an impact on it also. This leads to the concept that others, especially parents, have a strong influence on the process of one’s brain development. Parents commonly have an immense impact on their child’s life long success rate, especially in regards to academics.  The worst way to raise children is enforcing a fixed mindset upon them at a young age because this means they will only use their innate intelligence, which will not allow them to evolve throughout life. With this being said, the best way to parent a child is to implement a growth mindset upon them, where it allows an expansion on innate knowledge and leads them to the greatest amount of success and happiness.

The two most common mindsets that one develops are growth and fixed. The one an individual adapts has a large effect on many aspects of their life so the development process is essential. Obtaining a fixed mindset will lead to the least success and a more pessimistic lifestyle. A psychologist explained, "A ‘fixed mindset’ assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens which we can’t change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled" (Dweck). Those who have a fixed mindset only depend on the knowledge they previously had and there is no modification anywhere in their life as the years go on. They aim to never encounter failure so they avoid doing anything where defeat is a possibility. An example of a fixed mindset would be a person who does not attempt anything unfamiliar, “For example, if you say, ‘I’m not a math person’ then that belief acts as an easy excuse to avoid practicing math. The fixed mindset prevents you from failing in the short-run, but in the long-run it hinders your ability to learn, grow, and develop new skills” (Clear). The person in this example is afraid to challenge themselves because there is a possibility that they will not get the math answers correct, which they see as failure as opposed to just getting something incorrect and practicing until they get it right. As a result of this, these individuals do not experience progression in any aspect of their life because they never go out of their comfort zone or challenge themselves.

Since every brain functions differently, this causes everyone to act contrastingly. Negative actions and thoughts come from those with a fixed mindset, "The fixed mindset believes trouble is devastating. If you believe, ‘You’re either naturally great or will never be great,’ then when you have any trouble, your mind thinks, ‘See? You’ll never be great at this. Give up now.’" (Sivers). This demonstrates that with this mindset, one sees failure as havoc and they only believe that they are either born to be successful or will never reach success no matter how hard they try. Those with a fixed mindset tend to associate failure with defeat and get discouraged when failure occurs so they stop attempting to reach their goal (Rucker, He). This generally results in lower grades because they are not willing to learn new things, which is essential because the world is constantly changing so in order to excel in school, one must keep their mindset open.

One of the worst things a parent can do when raising their children, is tell them from a young age that they are smart. This may sound strange because as a parent it is their job to complement their kids and make sure they are happy and confident. However, when they praise them on their intelligence or a talent that they have, the child tends to lose motivation to improve on the aspect in life that they were told they excel in. This is because they believe that there is no room for improvement. This often leads to failure, or less success, because the students are told that they are already smart enough. So from a young age, they become overly confident in themselves and do not seek growth. In this scenario, it is common for the child to thrive early on but then slowly fade out throughout their life because they are not accomplishing their full potential and striving to the best of their abilities. With all of this being said, the parental involvement of a child is extremely crucial when raising them. If a parent enforces the fixed mindset onto their child and praises them on intelligence, all they are doing is hurting them because they will not be as successful as they can be and will definitely not do as well academically as they are capable of.

As previously discussed with the importance of parental involvement in regards to mindsets, it is essential to enforce a growth mindset on them as opposed to a fixed mindset. This claim is supported when explained, “Children of parents who view intelligence as static, rather than malleable through effort, experience more academic, self-regulatory, and motivational difficulty” (Schleider). It is further explained that parents with a fixed mindset have children with internalizing problems, such as social anxiety because of the fear of failure and symptoms of depression in boys. Since fix mindset parents emphasize on innate abilities, when their child is stuck on a problem, they might tell their children how to solve the problem, rather than allowing them to solve it independently. This is because they do not want their child to get the answer wrong because this would result in failure, which they see as a negative thing. Furthermore, this does not allow the child to expand their knowledge or adopt independent problem solving because their parents are so focused on the success.

In order for one to obtain the growth mindset it is essential to understand what it actually is. A psychologist further explains, “A ‘growth mindset,’ on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities” (Dweck). In other words, they succeed in the long run when they challenge themselves and think of failure as a positive aspect in the process of growth. As previously stated, every individual is obviously different especially when it comes to the ways we think. However, every individual has the ability to grow, “Although people may differ in every which way- in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments- everyone can change and grow through application and experience” (Popova). What makes the growth mindset so appealing is the creation for a passion of learning rather than a hunger for approval (Dweck). The students with a growth mindset tend to achieve greater success in school because of their willingness to learn new things, instead of solely focusing on what they already know (Jach). They are at the advantage because they are expanding their knowledge and are not afraid to fail. Not only does obtaining a growth mindset lead to more success academically, it also results in greater happiness overall. Since these individuals do not get discouraged when faced with defeat and they keep going, it results in less stress, which then leads to happiness. In addition, when one is doing well in school, happiness comes along with it.

However, one can argue that a growth mindset is not as beneficial as it is publicly portrayed and that obtaining a fixed mindset is more common than most think. A growth mindset is claimed to have flaws, “The problem with the growth mindset, and why it’s sometimes a low-hanging fruit, is that school leaders and teachers do a book study on it, but their practices really don’t change as much as their monologue does…We are all guilty of having a fixed mindset at the same time we are touting that we should have a growth one” (DeWitt). He then goes on to explain how with a growth mindset it is obviously good that students are trying but sometimes they do not learn much because they are greatly praised solely for the effort, not the result of their work. So his argument is that in some cases, having a growth mindset does not lead students to success but makes them feel good due to the praise they receive. However, this argument can be counteracted because after teachers make their students feel good for trying their hardest, they can then talk about what they need to work on and how to improve their academics as opposed to stopping at the praise part. 

With the growth mindset, a better method to obtain is for one to give themselves permission to be really bad at new things with the awareness that as they keep practicing, they will eventually get better. If they keep trying, they are bound to achieve success eventually, or at least see progress. Whereas those with a fixed mindset shy away from these new things and because of this they can be considered sheltered from certain aspects of life because they are not experiencing it to the fullest. Students were given concepts that they were not familiar with and prompted to work on them without being taught anything about it. This method resulted in students outperforming those who learn with traditional instruction (Seiter). Fixed mindset students solely rely on innate intelligence and ability when taking tests. This demonstrates fundamentally low ability because they are not utilizing their full potential. With this being said, lower test grades tend to be the result of this because a lot of the times innate ability is not good enough. These students tend to perform tasks that are simple and useless for skill improvement because they are shying away from challenge (Hong). In addition, they often lie when they perform badly on a test because they strive to prove to everyone that they are capable of success with what they were born with. On the other hand, growth minded students prefer to learn rather than “proving” their success and ability to others (Dweck). They do not care as much what others think of them because their main goal is to achieve the most that they can, which stems from challenge.  Essentially, this proves those with a growth mindset tend to be more successful in all areas of life. 

Growth is about moving forward, making progress and bringing unfamiliar things into being. Not only are students more successful, but businesses that use this growth technique such as Starbucks and Johnson & Johnson are proven to be more successful as well. There is a lot of emphasis on the concept of “growth” as opposed to “getting bigger” because “Companies that successfully seek bigness soon find that their surroundings become less hospitable, resources less abundant, and organizations less functional” (Tomasko 3). The goal of growing is to accomplish full potential and not maximum size. Growth is not a state of being, it is a continuous process that does not have a destination, so therefore there is no such thing as “growth company”, it is a “growing company”. Companies tend to result in more success when they are open to trying new things and listening to new ideas as opposed to solely sticking to their original goals and plans. It is always beneficial to obtain an open mindset, “They instinctively believe that there is always more than nascent reality, more than one single way in which things might work out” (Tomasko 61). Essentially, companies with this growth mindset receive more business and achieve greater success than other businesses because of their willingness to grow. 

In a Ted Talk with psychologist, Carol Dweck, who studies mindsets, she talks about a high school in Chicago who uses a grading system of “Not Yet”. This is in replacement for “F’s” and any other sort of failure. “Not Yet” means the student did not get the answer quite right but they do not become categorized as a failure, which helps students succeed in the long run because they do not become defeated or insecure, but they feel motivated to keep trying to get the answer correct. Dweck then did an experiment where she gave ten year olds a problem that was much too hard for them. There were a lot of different reactions from the students, demonstrating which mindset they obtained. Some responded with, “I love a challenge!”. She continues to preach, “They understood that their abilities could be developed. They had what I call a growth mindset” (Dweck). These students were excited to take on this challenge, as fixed mindset students who saw this as a prime opportunity to fail because it is a problem too complex for their innate knowledge to achieve success. As a result, the fixed mindset students ended up failing with this experiment because they were gripped in the idea of “now” and not “not yet” (Dweck). One study demonstrated how after these students failed, they turned to cheating instead of studying and trying to gain more intelligence. They would also look for someone who did worse than they did, so they would not feel as unintelligent because that is what they worry about the most as opposed to learning new things. These fixed mindset students run from difficulty and end up far less successful than they could be if they tried harder. 

The reason why it is so important to inform society about a growth and fixed mindset and how obtaining a fixed mindset is more essential is because it will greatly affect the future. Dweck explained how this generation has young employers who are incapable of getting through the work day without some sort of award. They have the mindset that in order to achieve success, they must be rewarded somehow. This is not good because these workers are our future. With this being said, it is extremely essential that we enforce growth mindsets on everyone and do so from a young age because that is when mindsets are adapted. Teachers and parents mostly, need to understand why a growth mindset is the pathway for a child’s lifelong success and happiness. It needs to be emphasized that they cannot applaud their children for intelligence because this happens far too often with parents who are overly proud and confident in their children. It is obviously normal and expected for a parent to be proud of their children when they accomplish something, but constantly praising them for their intelligence has negative effects and most parents do not realize this. All in all, the first step to a successful society is educating everyone on the benefits of a growth mindset and the disadvantages of a fixed mindset and then putting this concept to use.
