What I learned from Mindset

Even though I didn’t really like it

Towards the end of 2024, or maybe 2023, I bought myself a small pile of books that were “for the business”. The self-development, mindset, confidence, doing better, being better, kind of thing. Which is not something I am wholly on board with and yet I am always waiting for the better me to emerge.

I remember being particularly excited about two of them. Mindset by Carol Dweck and a Brené Brown one on imperfection. I didn’t read either - no real surprises there!

Recently, though, as they were staring back at me from the shelf, I thought now might be the time. I had tried Mindset a couple of times but found it incredibly hard to get into, it’s very formal. And so I decided to double or nothing it and bought myself the audio version to take on dog walks with me.

It wasn’t for me.

Part of that was the narration. I know that’s subjective, but the voice just didn’t work for me. As I said, it’s quite formal and textbooky and the case studies were … erm … a bit dull. There was no story. This seems to be an ongoing problem with me and these types of books, they feel more like a lecture than conversations and as someone who lives for the story, my brain just drifts off making up completely unrelated stories of my own!

There are exceptions. I really liked Atomic Habits by James Clear and re-visit it often. I mean it’s good, but not good enough to help me make any actual habits! One of my favourite “self-help” books is actually Help Me! by Marianne Power, where she spends a year trying out different self-help methods, like Tony Robbins, the law of attraction and even angel cards... She’s funny, she’s messy, she’s human. This is what makes sense to me.

The book itself was grounded, she shared the realism of following the guidance and also acknowledged how cultish some of this stuff can feel. Tony Robbins, anyone? I, for one, have never been comfortable with the idea of standing in a room with a thousand people chanting and cheering … unless it’s England Rugby or I’m at a festival. But that’s different. Isn’t it?

Back to Mindset. I struggled. It started well, explaining the concept. I mean I wasn’t best pleased with where it put me, but perhaps it’s time for a reckoning. By chapter 3 though I was losing the will to live and skipped ahead to the chapters where Dweck dives into specific areas like sport, business and relationships. Within 2 minutes of business, I knew she wasn’t talking about my kind of business. Next was relationships, which was a bust, so I skipped ahead to the final chapter Changing Mindsets.

I tried, I really did but after 10 minutes, I was done. It all felt very repetitive and very disjointed from my life and the thoughts that run through my head.

What I did take away from it though was pretty huge. The realisation of just how fixed my mindset actually is. It’s a bit embarrassing tbh.

I’d basically always assumed that because I’m open-minded, curious and generally supportive of other people, I must have a growth mindset. But what Dweck helped me to see is that my fixed mindset isn’t about other people. I don’t believe that other people can’t grow or change or succeed, it’s entirely internal. I am brilliant at believing that I can’t do things. Painting the pantomime set is a perfect case in point. This morning we had all three sets down ready to be worked on. Two needed flourishes and one needed a base coat, so yes, I opted for the base coat one because that is where my talent lies.

The thing is, I know I could learn the basics of painting, as an artist or painter and decorator, but if I only paint one set in my entire life, why would I need to? And not everyone is destined for greatness. I am very sure I am destined to be fairly mediocre.

This isn’t a pity party, or an attempt to get 100 responses of…don’t do yourself down, you’re amazing. Well for starters that would be impossible because 100 people won’t read this, let alone comment!

It feels honest and realistic to say it. I went to university, got an okay degree through some bloody hard work, a degree that I never used mind you. I then worked a series of fairly low-paid jobs, got promoted, hated management culture, got frustrated with people above me and eventually opted out of employment altogether. If that ain’t mediocrity, I don’t know what is!

There’s a part of me that finds this oddly comforting. Being mediocre means I can just bumble along, staying small is safe and keeping my expectations of myself low means I can’t be disappointed. And yet, I so often am, because this fixed mindset keeps me stuck and maybe there is something in me hiding away desperate to come out. It may not be greatness but it could be more than this.

Sadly Mindset didn’t give me the answers or a neat little toolkit to live my life by and it certainly didn’t show me a step-by-step way to change the way I think. What it did is help me recognise and verbalise that my attitude of shrug my shoulders, this is just kinda lame old me, has been protecting me from the big wide world, which is really hard to unsee once you’ve been on the precipice.

What happens next and where do I go now? I have no idea. I know my plan to work less over the summer could help. It’ll be the first time I’ve stopped and I hope, I really bloody hope, that I can stop for a moment and just be, without thinking about what I should be next.

This post is part of a loose writing challenge - 30 minutes for 30 days. Capturing small moments, wandering thoughts (of which there are many) and whatever insists on being written.