Growth Mindset: Reasons Behind Failure

This week, I continue my learnings on the growth mindset. I read the article entitled, "Behavioral research illuminates the very human heart of when, why, and how we fail," by Cassie Werber.

One thing that this article confirmed was that we often blame ourselves when we fall short of our goals. For instance, when someone doesn't go to the gym on February 1st, they try to blame themselves for their failure. But perhaps instead, we should just view it as an inconsistency that is surrounded on one side by 30 days of success, and has the potential to be surrounded by 30 more. I was able to learn that another approach to this is by applying Game Theory. Game Theory is a sort of economic theory that tells us how a multi-player interaction can be optimized. They give the example of a smoker as both players in a two player game and how he was able to overcome his vice.

One thing I would like to know more about is how many people simply give up on an entire goal when they have moderately failed. For instance, eating junk food within a week after making a goal not to, and whether or not we look for excuses in our life, or use it as motivation forwards.

Success and Failure cross when we face adversity. Source: Flickr

Comments

Story Lab: TED Talks

This week, I completed a Story Lab, in which I watched two separate TED Talks, the links can be found here . The first talk seems to epitomize the first impressions we develop from stories, while the second one delves into the relationships we make with characters. In the first talk, the idea of a first impression is further discussed, where the speaker notes how she had opinions of a country that had been built up solely from a few stories she had been told, and how when she encountered other people, they already had predispositions based on stories they had been told. This can be broadened to a wider audience to suggest that we often see short amounts of information, and then we make the conclusions ourselves. For example, people often just read the headlines of news articles and believe they know everything about that topic afterwards, as opposed to ever reading the article. The second talk digs into the connections we make with fictional characters, and why we spend so much tim...

Famous Last Words: Week before Terror

This Thursday, I was proctoring a pre-calculus test when our Complex Analysis professor announced that we would have a midterm in a week. Two days after my Thermodynamics midterm. Two days before my Fluid Dynamics Midterms. All within five days of my Numerical Analysis midterm. While this all seems super stressful, atleast once Fluid Dynamics is over, I can look forward to smooth sailing for a few weeks. This week, in contrast to the next few, is looking to be very peaceful as a whole. I got to play soccer with some friends this weekend. I had not played in a few months, but it was great to get back out on the field and run around a little. Even better, I finally decided on a Halloween costume as well- Russell from Up. The only hard thing has been finding badges. Finally, WE GOT A DOG. This part has been most exciting. She came by at some point this afternoon, a friend had brought her up. She basically explored the house for the first bit of the day, and now, she's getting more u...

Learning Challenge, I Wish My Teacher Knew

This week, I changed things up, and I decided to learn more about teaching skills. I read the article entitled, " What Kids Wished Their Teacher Knew " by Donna De La Cruz. This article is of interesting to me because I TA for two separate classes. Some of these are interesting for learning, such as "I wish my teacher knew that I wanted to learn more about history," while others are heartbreaking such as "I wish my teacher knew my family and I live in a shelter." The interesting topic between all of these are that teachers sometimes can make presumptions on students. The article confirms for me that children are excellent at hiding things. Whether it be poverty or a genuine interest in a field, they can mask that up to where there teacher would never know. One thing that I learned is that teachers often make presumptions about students based on their own upbringing and how they went through school themselves. This resonates with me pretty heavily, beca...

Indian Epics Blog

Search This Blog