What a growth mindset and a fixed mindset is (explained by an 8 year old)

This is an article about what a growth mindset is and what a fixed mindset is.

This article is actually by Kiran who is James’s daughter. She is 8 years old and has actually taught a class for agile coaches when she was in year 1. (That was me Kiran writing that too if you did not know).

I learnt about this in Kindergarten!!!

You kind of need to know what the other one is to understand the other. Growth mindsets and fixed mindsets are complete opposites as you will see in this article. So what is the difference?

It is like having two seeds, one seed is scared to grow and see the outside because its leaves might get hurt by the sun, or have its leaves get damaged by rain.

The second seed pushes the fear into a corner of her mind, a place that she never wants to go, so she will not fear any of the things the other seed fears, she will push herself as hard as she can, so she can feel the outside.

The first seed has a Fixed Mindset while the second seed has a Growth Mindset.

Here is a table that might help you to understand it.

GROWTH MINDSET	FIXED MINDSET
Perseverance (not giving up)	Wanting to give up and sometimes giving up
Thinking “I can do this”	Thinking “I can’t do this”
Thinking “This is hard but I won’t give up”	Thinking “I want to give up”
Trying hard to achieve things	Not trying hard to achieve things
Being positive about things	Being negative about things
Open-minded	Not open-minded
You might say “I am learning origami, I am not great at it now but I will practice so I can get better”	You might say “I am bad at origami. I will never be good at it.”