“The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it's not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset.”

Why it was said

Carol Dweck writes this early in Mindset, after a run of questions contrasting the two outlooks: why spend time proving how good you are when you could be getting better? It is her shortest description of what the growth mindset looks like in practice.

What it actually means

The sentence defines the growth mindset by behaviour, not belief. Saying that ability can grow is easy; the test is what you do when a task is hard and going badly. People in a fixed mindset read difficulty as evidence of a limit and protect their image by backing off. People in a growth mindset read it as the point where learning happens, and stay with it. Dweck's 'especially' matters: persistence when things are going well proves little. Later research has found the effects of mindset interventions to be real but generally modest, so the idea works best as a habit of interpretation, not a cure-all.

How to use it

1. 1Choose one task this month that is just beyond your current skill and commit to a set number of attempts before judging it.
2. 2When something goes badly, write down what it taught you before you write down what it says about you.
3. 3In the next feedback you give, praise effort and strategy rather than talent.