Chapter 13.1: Change -- Getting Out of a Fixed Mindset

 

Great favor and disgrace are both alarming; value great hardship as you do yourself.

What do I mean by ‘great favor and disgrace are both alarming?’ 

If great favor comes down into our lives, 

we are alarmed when we obtain it, and if we lose it, we are alarmed. 

This is what I mean by ‘great favor and disgrace are both alarming.’

When I was in 6th grade, I moved to a new school.  As the new kid, I didn't know anyone and nobody knew me.  However, because of a birth injury I have Erb's Palsy, which resulted in one arm being smaller and with more limited range of motion.  At the time, it was a visible handicap and the "cool" kids at school teased me about it and called me names.  One day, at lunch I convinced them to let me play football with them.  After essentially ignoring me on the field for the entire game, on the last play I was wide open in the endzone.  After waving my arms at the quarterback for what seemed an eternity in that moment, he threw the ball my way and I dove and caught the game winning touchdown.  I was the hero of the hour.  Yet, I remember feeling a mix of elation, hope, and anxiety -- elation for having made the catch and hope that this would help me to make friends.  At the same time, I also felt anxiety because I knew that I had just raised the bar for myself, was unlikely to ever be left open in the endzone again, and also unlikely to be able to continue to catch game-winning touchdowns every time.

An interesting feature of Dr. Carol Dweck’s research on Mindset is that when we have a “fixed mindset” in a certain area of our lives, both success and failure can be alarming and stressful.  When we succeed, we worry about how to maintain our success and achievement – we worry that we’ll lose all the we’ve worked so hard to accomplish.  When we fail, or receive negative reviews or results, we are equally alarmed.  When our personal identity is wrapped up in our performance and the praise of the world, it creates pressure to perform.  We feel the need to “show off,” to “showcase” ourselves, or put ourselves on display.  We fear that by not doing so, we will lose the “favor” of those around us.  Conversely, when we fail, are humiliated, or when misfortune comes knocking, we can fall into the trap of seeing that as “proof” that we are a failure or are unworthy or undeserving of the best things in life. 

The Way out of that trap is separate our worth from our performance and get off the roller coaster of constant comparison.  We are already priceless and precious, an infinite and rare treasure – as we are, where we are in our lives right now.  When we embrace that unconditional self-worth, we liberate ourselves and our performance from socially subjective and culturally constructed judgments and expectations and allow ourselves to just be – who we are, how we are, where we are.  Interestingly, that self-acceptance and authenticity then empowers us to become the best versions of ourselves.  For when we feel better about ourselves we perform better.  Too many of us do things, then pass judgment upon our actions, define what those actions mean about who we are, assign limiting labels and negative names to ourselves, and establish a diminished identity for ourselves – good, bad, or ugly around those behaviors.  This is putting the ox in front of the cart.  What if, we first decided who we wanted to be, embraced that ideal identity, with all of its affirming and empowering epithets and then lived into that identity, letting that unchanging reality, determine and define our courses of action?  For, we will ultimately become the thoughts we entertain about ourselves.  Too many of us spend too much time trying to “find ourselves” out there somewhere.  Instead, we can define ourselves – right here, right now.  We can practice unmediated action, let go of the burdens of the past, and live a life free from anxieties over the future.  If we didn’t have years of “history” dictating “who” we are and what we are capable of, what could we do?  What thoughts are we going to entertain about ourselves?  What are we going to choose to believe about ourselves?  Who are we?  There is nothing more important than the answer to the question: who am I?  For, as motivational speaker and entrepreneur Rock Thomas teaches: “What follows ‘I am’ follows you.”

The opposite of the “fixed mindset” is a “growth mindset” and it is at the heart of the Way, for inherent in the concept of the Way is that there is always a Way to get from where we are to where we want to be – a Way up, a Way out, a Way through, or a Way around every situation, every circumstance, and every obstacle.  It is true that we cannot always change external situations and circumstances beyond our control.  However, we are ALWAYS in charge (and we are the ONLY ones in charge) of how we choose to think and feel, what we choose to believe about any situation, and what meaning we assign to those things beyond our control.  As entrepreneur and leadership consultant Randy Pennington teaches, “nothing ever changes until we tell ourselves the truth."  The truth is we don’t always get to choose the situations and circumstances, the trials and challenges that come into our lives, but we ALWAYS get to choose how we feel, what we think, what we believe about, and how we respond to those external factors and nothing can take that power away from us!  We can only give it away.  Nothing changes until we change, but when we change, everything changes.  If we are letting anything or anyone “make” us feel, think, or do anything, we can reclaim our power and our lives at any moment.  We stand at a crossroads of the Way and by changing our perspective and the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that we put into any moment, we change the results.  So if we aren’t getting the outcomes we want in any area of our life – shift our mindset.  We are worth it. ~ DCB