Why Do I Have a Fixed Mindset?!

We unpack why struggle feels like a verdict on who we are and show how to move from fixed beliefs to a growth mindset grounded in safety, regulation, and honest reframing. Lived stories, research touchpoints, and simple tools make learning feel safer than staying the same.

• defining mindset as a learned framework, not a label
• how childhood roles and tests harden identity
• states versus traits and why context changes us
• fixed mindset as ego protection and shame
• safety before strategy and body-up regulation
• practical reframes including adding yet
• praising effort over outcome to unlock growth
• proving versus improving as an antidote to perfectionism
• redefining failure as data you can use
• uneven mindsets across life domains and how to spot them

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To read more about Mindset, check out Carol Dwek's book that we discussed here: https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322

Laura's Free Course on Emotional Development and Regulation:
https://benavieri.com/neuroception-sign-up/

This show is sponsored by:

Core Self

www.coreself.org

Benavieri Counseling & Coaching
www.benavieri.com

Active Healing Psychiatric Services
www.activehealingpsych.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet The Hosts And The Why
• 0:52 Framing The Big Questions
• 2:08 What Mindset Really Means
• 3:16 Childhood Labels And Identity
• 5:02 Tests, Traits, And What Changes
• 7:41 States Versus Traits
• 9:34 Holidays, Family, And Triggers
• 10:25 Fixed Mindset Misunderstood
• 12:18 When Failure Becomes Identity
• 14:15 Catching The “I’m So Stupid” Thought
• 16:05 Safety Before Strategy
• 18:05 Culture Of Effortlessness
• 20:40 Stretching, Ego, And Risk
• 22:24 Kids, Shutdowns, And Regulation
• 24:11 Survive First, Then Thrive
• 25:20 Growth Isn’t Hustle
• 26:09 Effort As Threat And Rewiring Beliefs
• 27:27 Practical Reframes And “Yet”
• 29:04 Aptitude, Interest, And Story
• 30:05 Potential Is Unknowable
• 31:40 Labels, Gender, And Internalizing
• 33:02 Shifting Praise To Effort
• 34:40 Proving Versus Improving
• 36:03 Redefining Failure As Data
• 37:33 Discomfort, Eustress, And Capacity
• 39:20 Key Answers And Year-End Close

Transcript

Laura: 0:02

Hello and welcome to Why Am I Like This? The podcast for those who didn't get enough hugs as a child. I'm Laura Wood and I'm a trauma therapist.

Michaela: 0:13

And I'm Michaela Beaver. I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Michaela why are we doing this podcast? I'm so glad you asked. We want to help you understand yourself a bit better. How the things you learned about yourself and the world in childhood are still affecting you today. We want to figure out why are we like this? Those random things we asked about ourselves that we might wonder about, like, why am I so jumpy? Why am I so anxious? Why do I take everything personally? Why are my thoughts so negative? Why do I feel as I have to fix everything all the time?

Laura: 0:51

Yeah. And today we are talking about our mindset. Have you ever avoided something, not because you can't do it, but because you're afraid of what it might say about you if you struggle? Um, we're talking about that how that impacts, how we view our stuff, and we are going to answer the following question. What does struggle a challenge? Going to start over and edit this out. Yes. And have you ever avoided something? Not because you can't do it, but because you're afraid of what it might say about you if you struggle? We're talking about how our mindset can impact how we view ourselves, and we're going to answer the following questions. Why does struggle and challenge feel so personal? Like it says something about who we are, not just what we're doing. How do fixed beliefs about our abilities keep us stuck, even when we want to change or grow? And what does it actually take to move into a growth mindset where effort feels meaningful and challenges feel tolerable and learning becomes safer than staying the same? So let's get into it. What is a mindset? What do we mean by that?

Michaela: 2:08

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, a mindset is basically your established set of attitudes, beliefs. It's kind of a mental framework, and it was shaped in the world in childhood based on situations or different thoughts or feelings that that you kind of learned about yourself.

Laura: 2:31

Okay, so like thoughts and feelings that we learned about ourselves. Like if my parents tell me all the time that I am funny, then I'm gonna believe I'm funny. Yeah, I think so.

Michaela: 2:45

Okay, I think that if we well, and it may not always be like what someone said about us, maybe it's like what we like, maybe we had a really big success. And so like then we start believing that like, hey, we have to be successful, right? Like like we're we got praise from being successful, so that must mean like I'm I'm smart, right? And so like then I think you know, we kind of just um attribute the meaning to those things that we're learning.

Laura: 3:16

Well, and also our role in the family, right? So I'm remembering that like my brother was the smart one, right? And I was I don't even know what one I was, but I was not the smart one. Like that's I wasn't not like they didn't say I wasn't smart or like nobody like ever, but just it wasn't a thing. But for him, it was like, oh, he's so he's a genius, like he's so smart, you know. I think I think my parents had us take like IQ tests when we were kids or something, and like um, but we get labeled, right? So like I bet there's a lot of ways, obviously, in the rest of the world that like labels us and those like things that matter, yeah.

Michaela: 3:59

So I think like this was an interesting one from my childhood is I always thought that like I was overweight growing up, and I look back at pictures, I was not, but my sister was so skinny, like like real skinny. So everybody always commented on how skinny she was. So I assumed that because nobody said that about me, that I wasn't actually skinny, right? I wasn't thin, and I'm only like I was healthy, I was a healthy kid, but I wasn't like my sister was like so skinny. So like then in my head, I really always thought that I was like fat growing up.

Laura: 4:34

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. So, like that's what like I didn't think I was smart because nobody said I was smart, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't necessarily, it's just like because somebody else had that particular label and like that particular attention. And you know, the world labels people, like we are constantly being assessed and judged and evaluated, and like that's really hard and it feels like it's about us, it feels personal. And I think too, you know, um I taught a class recently on like psychological assessments, like called psychometrics, and we do a lot of these assessments, and it's almost like we think that they are this like this means something that's gonna be last that's gonna last forever. So, like we talk about intelligence tests, like IQ tests, we talk about personality tests, etc. And I think for a long time in our history as a society, we believed those things were fixed. So, for example, if you take an IQ test at five, you're gonna get the same result as you if you take an IQ test at like 25, right? But that's not at all true. IQ, so like intelligence, personality tests, like those things are not fixed. Um I remember working out at corporations where they did those personality assessments, and I would get so mad because people would use those as like rules, like hard rules about a person, like, oh well, they demonstrated this on their test, so like they're not qualified for this particular position, or like they wouldn't be a good fit for this team because they are more like this and not like this. And I would get so angry because I'm like, one, nobody here is qualified to make that assessment. Two, um these things are just like a snapshot in time, right? So things like our outlook, our mood, um whether or not we came out of like a big success or a big failure just right before we took the test is gonna influence the way we rate ourselves and self-score those kinds of personality assessments and intelligence stuff. So it's not the way and the environment that we take those in that makes a difference too. So it's not actually a fixed thing that we are a certain way forever.

Michaela: 7:01

Yeah. That reminds me of like the Enneagram tests. Like, I swear that I took the Enneagram, like, and every time it says I'm a three, and I'm like, I don't think I'm a three. When I read the book and like looked through all the things, I'm like, oh no, I'm a nine. And then like the people that are nines can look like other numbers, especially if they hang out with people that are that number a lot. So, like a lot of my friends are like a three, which is basically like the you know, go-getter, achiever people. And I'm like, no, I'm pretty sure that I'm like the peacemaker person, but I just like can act like this other thing.

Laura: 7:36

And people are dynamic, right? More things can be true at once. Like we're we have tendencies. I think about states and traits, right? So a state is something that is uh temporary, it's something that kind of um comes and goes depending on our mindset at the time, our mood at the time, like a state of like I'm in a state of anxiety versus I am an anxious person. Like a trait is like a trait that's kind of consistent and fixed over time, like um things that uh we demonstrate most of the time. But a state is something that just kind of comes and goes, an emotional state versus like a fixed trait. And even traits can be changed, right? But I think it's more we are sort of we have this map of like original of traits that we sort of start with, right? Like maybe we're curious, maybe we're um we're open, maybe we're optimistic, maybe we're pessimistic. Like we have these kind of natural tendencies of traits, but those things can change with work. We have to if like there's a lot of effort that we change those. And then states kind of come and go based on like impact from the environment and like outside stimulus um and internal responses to um external, you know, events. Like those states kind of like get triggered, I guess, versus like a trait is like something that we kind of start with and and we have to like make intention to change it over time, like if that makes sense.

Michaela: 9:17

Yeah, totally. I mean, this time of year, like people are coming back into me and they're like feeling more stressed, and they're feeling more stressed because it was just finals and they're students and they're trying to get through their finals, and there was like really a lot, so they're like reporting an increase in anxiety, or it's the holidays, and I you know, there's a lot of things, and we're just talking about beforehand, like all of the things that we have to get done in order to be ready for this like event of Christmas.

Laura: 9:48

You know, big day, you gotta do a lot, there's a lot of stress, and and then when family comes in town, we tend to revert back to a lot of the states and traits that we experienced in childhood, and so we um often are triggered by our family, our our family of origin, and so we kind of uh lose a lot of what we worked for in adulthood, and we revert back to some of those default mechanisms that that kind of show up. Um, but the point I think is that all of this is changed, changeable. Yeah, none of this is fixed, and so we think about mindset that way too. Everybody, not everybody, a lot of people have heard of a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset, right? A lot of people have heard that terminology. And when we think about a fixed mindset, we think about somebody who maybe is rigid in their beliefs, somebody who um doesn't want to make change, but that's not what we mean. I think what we really mean by a fixed mindset is the belief that I am who I am, and I'm and that won't change, right? So it's not necessarily those character trait like characteristics, it's just like the belief about oneself and the capacity to change. So yeah, you know, somebody who believes that intelligence stays the same, like, oh, I'm smart or I'm dumb, right? Right, kind of a fixed mindset.

Michaela: 11:18

Yeah, and so that reminds me, um, I I don't know if I've talked about this before, but um I was at this um like trampoline park with my kid, and um we were hanging out, and this and this guy was like, Oh, you're a nurse practitioner? Like, I can't believe you're a nurse practitioner. Like, I kind of always thought you were like Ditzy or whatever, right? And so it's like, in in his mind, just because I was perceived a certain way or whatever, that means that like, oh like I was actually successful, like that's surprising, right? So it's kind of like that fixed mindset of being like, you will always be who you were, you know, if you were not very smart before, you how are you smart now, right?

Laura: 12:02

Or like you're fun and jumping on the trampoline with your kids and like joking around and like having a good time. So you must not be also smart and dedicated and successful and like a serious person, right? You can't be both, but but that's not true. People are I say this all the time: people are dynamic, we are complicated, we are not fixed in one thing, we're ever evolving, and our experiences and our our outside influences make changes to who we are and how we are really, really regularly. And the thing about a fixed mindset that you know, the question that we asked in the beginning like why does everything feel so personal? The thing about a fixed mindset is that we believe in it's it's not about what we're doing, but it's about who we are, right? So for example, if I fail a test, I'm a failure. It's not an event, it's a it's a um, it's a character trait. Right. And so we need to think about it's not something that I am, it's something that I did. So the same is true with guilt and shame. How many moms out there have mom guilt and shame and think, oh, I'm a terrible mom because I did this one thing? That's fixed mindset thinking. Yeah. Whereas, oh, I made a mistake, and then I can be accountable and I can apologize and I can make a change, and I don't have to do that again. I can do things differently next time. That's more of a growth mindset.

Michaela: 13:38

Yes. It's and it can be challenging because sometimes we often repeat patterns, right? If we haven't fixed our dysregulation, which is the cause of us making having bad mom moments, right? Like having those moments where we're feeling like we, you know, didn't do our best. Yeah. You know, if we're not working to change that, we're going to repeat those things over and over again. And so then it does feel like that's just who we are, or that that that that's like we're not able to change, but we haven't started to fix the real problem either.

Laura: 14:15

And I think that's so important. Our mindset can change and we can change it. So our mindset can change like automatically based on an event. So for example, I think the other day I did something that wasn't necessarily thought well thought out. And I said to myself, I said, I'm so stupid. That was my initial reaction. So that's a fixed mindset. Now, I don't want to have a fixed mindset all the time, but that is maybe that was maybe my first reaction. So I can have both a fixed mindset and a growth mindset at the same time. It's just gonna depend on the environment and the situation and the event that happens and what I choose to do about it. So I heard myself say, Oh, that's so stupid, or I'm so stupid. And then I have to rephrase that to something like I said when I introduced the idea, which was that wasn't really well thought through. I love that. That's so good. That's a thing I did, not a thing I am.

unknown: 15:18

Right.

Michaela: 15:19

Well, and I think you're so right that like now that's exactly what I was thinking about this. Um like there are some things that I definitely feel like I maybe have a tendency to be more fixed mindset on, and other things that I feel like I'm have a growth mindset on, right? Like, you know, we are definitely putting ourselves out there by doing this podcast and trying to grow and learn and and and read different books and like the mindset book that we're talking about kind of today, you know, and so we're trying to, you know, grow in that and and learn alongside all of you guys. And so, but like there are other things that like I'm so stupid that comes up that you're like, oh, okay, you know, that wasn't the most growth mindset thought.

Laura: 16:05

Yeah, that's exactly right. I can have a growth mindset in work and then a fixed mindset at home, right? So even my environment matters where I am, who I'm interacting with. I can have a fixed mindset in my relationship with my boyfriend, but a growth mindset in a relationship with my business partner, right? So those are different different contexts. We might have different automatic thoughts, and we have to recognize and give ourselves space for those automatic thoughts to just exist and not shame or blame ourselves for that first thought that we had.

Speaker 2: 16:41

Yeah.

Laura: 16:43

Sometimes when we have an automatic thought, we say, Oh, I'm just negative. And that's not true. You're not just negative, you had a negative thought, and that negative thought doesn't have to be acted on. You can challenge that thought by you know offering different information, reframe it. You can recognize that I made that mistake because I didn't feel safe, I felt dysregulated and I need to find more safety. I sometimes say to my clients that an internal sense of safety is the antidote to most distress. So when I'm not operating at my best, it's most likely that I'm not experiencing an internal sense of safety. So maybe I can give myself a little more compassion than I am this, right? We, you know, I hear it all the time. Well, I'm a person who, you know, I can't do that because of this. I, you know, I don't like situations like that, I avoid those things. So we kind of train ourselves that like those are just intolerable and I just don't interact in that way in the world. Right.

Michaela: 17:57

Well, and I think like when we're looking at this whole concept, that makes sense because we're trying to protect ourselves from feeling fill in the blank, I'm stupid, I'm a failure, I'm whatever. So when we have that fixed mindset, we often try to only put ourselves in situations where we can prove that we're going to be successful. I liked this one quote that from the book that said, it's not always those who start out the smartest who end up the smartest. And so, you know, I think that that's like so powerful. It's like we are not stuck in being whatever it is that we think we are. Um, and she gave some different like examples of different people, like Einstein or whatever, who like really had been negative, had negative evaluations initially. Um, and like someone who like who those who do like artwork, whatever. Like, do we start out as being the best artist in the whole world? No, like we all can evolve and build our skills over time. You know, we don't just have this, you know, savant ability to play the piano initially, right? Like, so we're all growing and learning. Um, people don't just start out as always being the best.

Laura: 19:15

And you know, I think our culture and our society really um they encourage and or um sort of push us towards a fixed mindset because I hear this all the time from clients too, that other people are different. Other people have it easy. Like it's easy for them, that means they're good at it. I'm not good at stuff because it's not easy for me. I'm not good at that because if I was good at it, I would just be good at it. I wouldn't have to work that hard at it. But what I remember from our last or a couple of episodes ago when we were talking about Brene Brown's The Power of Vulnerability, you know, she quotes. That wholehearted people work at it all the time, right? So even to be regulated, so thinking about um people who've experienced trauma and are dysregulated often, they might think, Oh, I'm just that this is just who I am now, right? I am my PTSD. I have this, I am this, this is how it is. But no, with work, you can find safety. It takes time though, because our nervous system isn't really ready for like a whole coin flip change, not all at once. We have to go at the pace that our nervous system can tolerate. And I think that can be frustrating. And our society requires quick success, right? Society and culture value um value effortlessness. How many of us to effortless beauty, effortless, you know, success, effortless whatever? That no, that's not real. Super successful people work really hard at it. And we fail a lot so often. Oh my gosh. If I had a list, I could list off all the things that I've tried and not succeeded at. Like I've tried and failed at, you know, all kinds of things, like TikTok, for example, and you know, just generally, and um, you know, certain therapeutic modalities that I tried to study and was like, this isn't for me. Like, I don't I can't I can't get into this. Um, you know, different business ventures, different um avenues of growth for my business, different marketing strategies. Like I tried something and it didn't work, and I that's okay because that gives me information. So failure as information versus failure as fact.

Michaela: 21:44

Right. I like the idea of stretching ourselves, like she says about like just being able to put yourself into different situations. Like when we stretch, it's not always comfortable, right? We're pulling ourselves and it feels maybe not so great. And um, but if we are thinking like in that moment, you know, I I remember, you know, giving a presentation and standing in front of the class or whatever, and feeling like judged or feeling like if I said anything, I would, you know, I was gonna be a failure, people are gonna laugh at me, or it's gonna you're never gonna come back from this if you don't do it perfectly, right? None of that's true, none of that was true, right? And you move through it and you move on and you become better at it.

Laura: 22:26

Yeah, and when we when our ego is on the line, it feels dangerous, right? When we're and our ego is essentially a collection of attitudes, beliefs, and thoughts that we have about ourselves, it like an ego is an amalgamation of all of those things within our perception of ourselves. So when our ego is on the line, if I believe that I'm smart and I believe that I'm successful, but then I try something new and it's not easy for me, I'm gonna give up right away. But if I believe that I am smart and capable of change and growth, then I might not give up right away, right? If I'm capable of learning. So it feels really personal to us when our ego depends on being smart and being successful, and that not trying is a part of being smart and successful. Like if I had it, I would I have it. If I don't, if I have to work at it, that means that it's not true about me that I'm smart. If I have to work at it, it's not true about me that I'm successful. Like those are things that we take personally in ourselves. Um, and when a when we have a failure experience, we really um can beat ourselves up. And you know, that fixed mindset thinking puts us in a position of vulnerability, and we want to avoid vulnerability. We don't want to have our self, our conceptualization of ourself put into question and challenged.

Michaela: 24:00

So I have an I have a question. This is something I was thinking about, and I want to get your take on it. So when we okay, so when like we're really like young, I see this trait in my kiddo, who he just really has a fixed mindset. Like he like if something doesn't work out right away, like if I'm not, if I can't get something to work out, then we want to shut down and we want to throw it and we want to give up, like it's a whole thing. And he has been like this pretty much his whole life. I don't think that this is like I definitely think that there's like environmental triggers that will create these things, but I also feel like this is something that like he was he has had. And you know, we just recently did um an a QEE on his brain, and he's got an a really highly activated cingulate gyrus. And I wonder, I know that like we often think about that with like OCD, high beta, things like that, but I also wonder if that's like something that kind of is really activated in these in people who feel very stuck and like shut down really quickly. Is that something that you've noticed?

Laura: 25:10

That makes sense to me. I don't have like I probably don't have enough like quantifiable data to say like a trend either way, but that may what that makes sense to me, right? Because if we are, you know, um experiencing, we want to shut down when our ability to tolerate uh challenge is you know basically reached our max, we want to shut down and we want to avoid that and get away from it um because too much, it's just too much and it's too much too fast. So when our mind is like moving really quickly, a lot of the time, like super smart kids. I see super smart kids who um when it gets challenging, they give up because it's like it's not going fast enough for them. Like it doesn't meet their expectation of like how things are, and they have a really hard time slowing down, breaking it up into chunks, right? Breaking it down into pieces, doing one step at a time because their brain wants to do 20 things at a time. And so when you're challenged by something, you really have to slow down and zoom out, and their brain's just like not ready to do that, and so they're like, I can't do this, it's intolerable. I'm shutting down.

Michaela: 26:34

Yeah, so it might be more challenging for us to just like change quick change our mindset on things. Like there are other things that we might have to do in order to get there, right? So, in that case where like we're shutting down, we're gonna have to, or like we're getting dysregulated, we're gonna have to do some body up techniques to calm our nervous system down, and then maybe we can do some learning. And this isn't just true for kids, it's also true for adults, where we have to take take a moment, get regulated so that we can actually start implementing some of these strategies so that we can help kind of it ease ourselves into challenging that fixed mindset so that we can create more of that growth mindset.

Laura: 27:16

I agree with that. We have to survive first, and then we can thrive. Often what we're trying to do is thrive, thrive, thrive, thrive, thrive. And that's when we put ourselves in these vulnerable positions where we're not feeling regulated, we're not feeling safe, we make silly mistakes, we um we don't think things through, we don't operate at our best, we start to fail, and then we start to give up and we put out less effort because we're like, it's gonna be a failure no matter what. I'm not gonna get it like, and I can't handle the disappointment. So it's a cyclical, it kind of is a downward spiral. So when we survive first, meaning we find safety, we find survival skills, we find competency and capacity, then we can use all that to start to thrive. But when we expect that success and thriving at no with no effort, we're disappointed. We're letting ourselves down, we're putting our in ourselves in a no-win situation.

Michaela: 28:19

Right. That makes sense. Well, and I think that it's important to remember about the growth, the growth mindset doesn't just mean pushing harder, hustling, working longer hours, ignoring your limits. Like it definitely doesn't mean to be putting yourself into into negative situations. It just means, you know, allowing yourself to be uncomfortable in not being mean to yourself and attacking yourself at the same time. It's like, it's like I can put myself into a challenging situation, I can put myself up for a promotion at work, I can try to go out for a new uh educational thing and be okay if it doesn't work out.

Laura: 29:04

I can be okay if it doesn't work out. That's a belief that is part of a growth mindset. But how do fixed beliefs about our abilities kind of keep us stuck? I think one of the answers to those questions, to that question, is that it's really hard to change a core belief. We have to use a lot of effort for that. And when we have a fixed mindset, sometimes effort is the threat, right? So it kind of feeds itself. So having so changing our fixed mindset into a growth mindset takes time and effort and energy. It's not something that we do easily. Um, and so when we have that fixed mindset, those fixed core beliefs, there's we have to kind of come at them from a lot of different angles. You know, I like what you said before about the body up approach. I totally agree with that in terms of regulation. And then once we're regulated, we can start challenging our thoughts. Maybe we can start using a journal to track our fixed beliefs. Maybe we can start, you know, just unpacking those a little bit, like inputting a um a point of friction between our belief and our behavior.

Michaela: 30:17

Yeah. And I I mean, I like sticky notes or like notes on your phone or different different ways of like reminding yourself, like how to change those thoughts, like a mantra. I changing like I can't do this to I can't do this yet.

Laura: 30:35

You know, or I haven't done this before. Right. I can't do this yet is like saying, you know, like I haven't done this before. This is new to me.

Michaela: 30:45

Right. I failed, like I'm a failure to like, hey, that strategy wasn't effective.

Laura: 30:52

Yes. And those things are hard to think of in the moment. So writing them down ahead of time gives us a good opportunity to use that list when we need it the most, because when we need it the most, we're not in the mindset to use it. Right. Absolutely.

Michaela: 31:13

And I think that like some people judge themselves too because like they I think we we I like how you were talking about the effort piece of things. We look around and it seems like everyone is like just comes so easy to them. And we're discounting the fact that like we're not with them 24-7. We don't really know how hard they studied or how much their how their parents pushed them, or like we don't know anything really about other people's experience. And so we look at them and they're like, oh, they finished their test early, so they must be better than me. You know, and it's like effort isn't a sign of like deficiency, like just because we have to work harder at something, in like I might work harder at math, and like I and I might have to work harder there, and and like English comes really easy to me, like reading and language arts and things like that.

Laura: 32:10

Yeah, we have sort of the predetermined aptitudes for certain things, like our interests, right? So when I'm interested in something and I'm passionate about it and I'm excited about it, or even just the way our brain works, right? So the way that my my brain might be patterns and math, and it's not by the way, but patterns and math and equations and solving puzzles, like though that might just be like a part of how my brain works because we're all diverse in the way that our brains process information, but that doesn't mean that I don't have to try at it when things that nothing can challenge me. Like things can get harder and harder and harder, and I can either get excited about the challenge because the challenge is an opportunity for growth and learning, or I can get discouraged by the challenge and make it make it mean that I don't matter, or that it's that I'm not good enough, or that um I'm not special, I'm not smart, right? Like we kind of tell ourselves those stories. So recognizing that a fixed mindset is a story that we're telling ourselves that is based in a snapshot in time, but we're making it a forever problem.

Michaela: 33:24

Yeah. Well, one of the other things that I thought was really interesting in the book is like this concept that a person's true potential is unknowable. And they looked at the they they asked these teachers, like, hey, what do you think about this person? They got a 69% on their test. And, you know, a lot of the teachers' responses were based on like they kind of already thought that they knew what the student was like. They're gonna prejudge someone based on one exam score, right? And I think that there's a lot of people in the world that are gonna do that, but we don't have to do that for ourselves, and we don't have to do that for our kids. And I think that this is one of the things that I see a catch in different areas of even my own home. Um, but you know, having these ideas and and and saying things to our kids that give them the idea that they are a certain way, and we really want to be careful how we talk to others, whether we're the boss talking to our employees, or an employee talking to a peer, or a parent talking to a child, or a child talking to another child. These things are happening from all different dynamics of relationships, and how we communicate to people really does impact how they see themselves, and so you know, being aware that how we talk to ourselves is just as important as how how has how like we all communicate with each other, and how we talk to ourselves, we tend to believe, right?

Laura: 35:04

We believe the things we say to ourselves, and we also it's um true in some of the research that you know Carol Dreck was talking about was the fact that women tend to believe outside sources of uh criticism more than men, which is just like an antidote, like just an interesting piece that I thought was interesting. Um, you know, we as women will take to heart what somebody says, will really internalize that, even if we're really successful and we're uh show we're capable and we're confident and we're competent, we still will hear those things and internalize them. So that's something to be mindful of and be careful of, right? Like it's not always true what you say to yourself, and it's not always true what other people say to you.

Michaela: 36:08

And that's I think the key, like as an adult, that's what we can hand, that's what we can take away is like we don't have to listen to the things that other people, the information that they tell us either, right? Just because they put us in a box doesn't mean we have to stay there.

Laura: 36:26

And just because we have done something a certain way for a long time doesn't mean that's true forever, right? Doesn't mean that has to stay true. So for example, if somebody labeled you as, you know, the funny one or the smart one or the not funny one or the not smart one, right? Not all of that is gonna stay true forever. You either accept it and the fixed mindset, or you acknowledge it as part of a snapshot in time in the growth mindset, and you think that it's possible for me to improve this and do more and do different things and change my behaviors, change who I am. So when somebody, even if somebody labels you and you feel like it's correct, doesn't mean that it's true forever.

Michaela: 37:27

Yeah, I love that, and that's really good. Um, and so we just can start practicing some better conversations with ourselves instead of you know, our praise to ourselves as being like, oh, I'm so smart. You know, maybe we actually change how we talk to ourselves in that way too, even if it is a positive thing. Maybe we remind ourselves, like, hey, but I worked really hard on that. Like that was really important to me, and I tried really hard. And trying and effort is actually a good thing.

Laura: 37:58

Yeah, I think that working really hard is something I'm proud of. It and I think that growing and learning is something that I'm interested in and I want to do more of, you know, and I put myself in situations where challenge allows me to grow and allows me to learn, and I like that, right? Like I enjoy that, but that wasn't always true. I like, you know, in when from a fixed mindset perspective, I might have liked things to come easy to me. Like I didn't have to work really hard in school. I didn't, like in elementary school and high school and whatever, like I got what I got and it was fine. I didn't have to work really hard, but then I put myself in more challenging situations like graduate school and you know, upcoming doctoral school like program, like those things I do have to work really hard at. Like, I it's not just like automatic knowledge, and so I'm choosing to do that to stretch, like you said earlier, but I don't have to. I could stay the same, and everything would be the same, and I would just stay in my bubble, but that doesn't that's not really working.

Michaela: 39:19

I don't want to do that. But the other question here, and that you don't have to answer this is like um rhetorical, right? But like you enjoy stretching and like trying and like working at learning and growing in your field, but what areas of your personal like or other parts of your life are you avoiding to grow in and to feel stretched in, right? Because you're good at growing and stretching in this area because it's just it's normal, right? It's except it's expected.

Laura: 39:51

But where are we not doing that as well? I think that's a good point, kind of bringing it back to what we were talking about earlier, where like in different categories. And context in our lives, we have different mindsets. So I might have a fixed mindset in my family of origin or something where I'm like, oh, this is, you know, this is a role that I play, and this is always gonna be this way.

Michaela: 40:14

Um it might even be more simple than that. Like, I'm not a tennis player. Okay, I used to play tennis, but like I'm not a tennis player. So, like, therefore, like that's not me. I can't do that, right? It could be something as simple as like, I'm I don't knit, like I've never knit. I'm not creative, I don't do art, right? It might be other areas that aren't like so dramatically impacting our lives, but we're just putting ourselves into this, like, that's not me. I can't do that, right? Because we're afraid, like it's normal to grow in in like our career, but it's like what areas are we preventing ourselves? Like, it's not me to put myself out socially, like that's scary, you know.

Laura: 40:57

Yeah, I I say sometimes like I'm not sporty spice, like I don't do sporty things, like that's not a thing that I do. Um but that doesn't mean I can't. But I maybe I am afraid of trying and failing, right? That's something that I have to think about. Um, and part of me wants to go and exercise more and wants to go and be more athletic. But then another part of me is like, well, you can't do that because that's not you and that's not your right. So my fixed mindset voice is saying, Don't do that, like you can't do that. Um so yeah, that's interesting. It's important to watch out for that fixed mindset voice. Yeah, absolutely. So, what does it actually take to move into a growth mindset where we can tolerate challenge and we are interested in learning, right? What does it take to do that? I think one of the things is, you know, what we were just talking about, which is watch out for that fixed mindset voice, like um sounding like if I fail, it means I'm not capable, or um, I'm just not good at this. Like, that's not me. I'm not that um person. I'm not a person who can do these things, or I'm not someone who's successful, I'm not someone who's this. We gotta watch out for that voice. And when it comes, we want to acknowledge it and be like, hmm, that's fixed, like label it. That's a fixed mindset voice.

Michaela: 42:27

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I think that it doesn't mean that we have confidence, and it definitely doesn't mean that we're perfect, right? But we're giving ourselves permission to say, I can learn and I can believe that I can change, or I believe that I can fail, and it doesn't mean anything bad about me.

Speaker 3: 42:49

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Laura: 42:51

Yeah, it doesn't say anything bad about me. So redefining failure, right? And um learning from it. Like failure is just information. It's something that we learn from and it gives us information that tells us what doesn't work, tells us what we don't like, tells us what we do like, tells us what did work. Um, it's like data. It's um, you know, I always used to say when I worked with um a large team, like when I give feedback to my team at like annual reviews or whatever, I always used to say like feedback is just data. It's just information to learn from. It's just, it's not personal. It's just this is what is happening right now, and then we can make that change in the future so we can adjust the strategy, we can try again, we can um move forward.

Michaela: 43:44

Yeah, and I know that like I hear like students as like an easy way of like looking at it, but like I got a I got an F on a test. Okay, uh that means uh I didn't put in the effort. If I did put in the effort, I didn't really know how to study for the test. I didn't really know how to look for what the teacher was going for. I was too in, I was critically thinking too much about the questions and overthinking them and picking pick the wrong answer because I was trying to make sure I did a good job and I got too in my head on it. Like, you know, so there's multiple reasons why we don't why we can can be unsuccessful in one test, right? It's a learning curve as to what the teacher's looking for.

Laura: 44:27

Yeah, like I don't understand that yet. I don't understand these concepts yet. Like you said earlier, adding the word yet is um one of the tools from the book that basically shifts our thought process into something that is developable, right? Like um, it moves into the process of learning instead of the ego of self of this is me as a I don't know, like I'm not a knowing person, I'm not smart enough, I'm not capable. Yeah, so it's not about your ego and your identity, it's about your the process of learning.

Michaela: 45:12

Right. And growth definitely doesn't happen when things feel easy. So would it be fair to be like, hey, if everything feels easy, you're not doing it right?

Laura: 45:25

Or maybe if everything feels easy, you need to be looking at new goals. Yeah. You know, um, learning to lean into the discomfort of growing. Like it's not easy to make change. Change is hard, it's stressful, it's creates anxiety, it creates um unknowns, and those things are difficult, but we can't learn and we can't grow if we can't tolerate change and difficulty and discomfort.

Michaela: 46:02

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that like we're talking about eus dress, like the the healthy kind of stress that helps us build capacity to know that we can be uncomfortable and be okay and nothing really bad happens, right?

Speaker 3: 46:20

Mm-hmm.

Laura: 46:20

Yeah, like when we think about that healthy stress, we're recognizing we can think about it from the perspective of like my brain is learning, I'm getting better at this, I'm learning something new. That's why this is hard. It's hard. I say all the time, it's hard because it's hard, not because you suck at it or not because you're bad at it, right? It's just a hard thing to do. Right. So we have to get used to that it's not easy and that's okay. And then we have to tell ourselves different stories about what's going on. Like you work really hard, that was a good approach. You didn't give up, you tried really uh you tried your best, you um put a lot of effort into it. Um, you know, those are things that we want to celebrate in ourselves instead of just outcomes. So we often will praise outcomes and get excel excited and celebrate outcomes, but we don't celebrate the work that went into it.

Michaela: 47:18

Yes, absolutely. It makes me think about how like we went bowling the other day, and you know, you're like, oh, good job, you got a strike, okay? But also like praising that, like, hey, that was really good form, or you're really trying really hard, you know, like all the times that you know, oh, you're really having fun with this, right? Like being able to praise all the things.

Laura: 47:43

Yeah, I love that praising the fun as well, because life is supposed to be exciting and enjoyable as well as hard and growing and learning and you know, all the things, right? We want to remember to include the fun. Yes, and improving is a goal that we can have, right? You were talking about earlier, like proving that you're smart enough, but the shifting from proving to improving gives us that ability to say what's next, what else can I do? How else can I improve this? How can I uh what can I learn from this experience? Um, how can I reach the next step? What are my goals? So we reduce that perfectionism by saying, like, how can I learn from this, or what else can I do differently, or what, you know, what it what other strategies are there out there? Yeah, I love that. Yeah. So like I think, you know, if we look back on um some of the questions that we started with, you know, why does struggle feel so personal? We have the answer. Like somewhere along the way, we tied all of those mistakes and effort to our worth and not our growth. Like we made them personal. They, or they were made personal to us through some of those things that those labels that come from external. You know, and why do our fixed beliefs keep us stuck? Because they make us say say they convince us that staying safe is smarter than stretching. And even when, you know, staying the same and staying safe isn't working for us as much, right? Like we want to um stretch a little bit, take those risks. And then what does it take to shift? I think permission to be uncomfortable, to be a beginner, and to learn without punishing, right? Like don't punish yourself for the acts or the failures or the I said it didn't work. Right. You know, so I think that is a really good place to leave it. And um I really appreciate this as our last recording of the year. Um, those of you listening will hear this in the new year already, but for us, this is still 2025. And a good way to wrap it up by focusing on a growth mindset for 2026. Um thank you all for listening to Why Am I Like This? If you like our show, please leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Follow the show and share with your friends. This episode was written and produced by me, Laura Wood, and with Shayla Bieber. Our theme song is Making Ends Meet by Thick As Thieves. And a special thanks to Core Self, Benavieri Counseling, and Active Healing Psychiatric Services for sponsoring our show.