Approaching College with Purpose, Textbook Page 24 (46 of 300)

24 Part I The Transition to College Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. Your mindset is a purely internal thing, but its effects are found in all areas of your life. Although it only constitutes a pattern of thought in your brain, it shapes your actions, interactions, habits, and way of life. This is why it is so important to understand, deconstruct, and be critical of the origins and implications of your mindset. Working to do this won’t just change the way you think it also has the power to change the way you experience life. One way to break down and understand this concept of mindset is to ask yourself what you’re good at or what you could become good at. This is one way to under- stand your attitudes about different skills and activities. Your mindset is fundamental to your college experience. You don’t come to college with a blank slate and you can’t pretend that now that you’re here you get to decide everything about your life. There’s no question that your previous experiences and entrenched beliefs have not disappeared. But if you can be aware of the mindset you’re coming into college with, you can work to shape it, improve it, and use it to be successful. Facets of Mindset Let’s look at a few facets of mindset. We call them facets because mindset is a complex concept and scholars have taken many different approaches to under- standing and explaining it. A facet is one side of a many-sided object. Imagine a gem and that each one of these frameworks is one side of the gem. The theories aren’t in opposition to one another they are simply multiple ways to understand the complex concept. We present these facets as interconnected and mutually S E C T I O N 2.2 CRITICAL MOMENT Instructor My best friend believes that the world is against him. Not in a huge way but in a bunch of little ways. He stubs his toe or drops a knife and the look on his face communicates, “See, it happened to me again.” Of course he doesn’t pay attention to all of the times that he walks through a room without stubbing his toe and all of the meals where all the utensils stay on the table. This mindset or attitude has significant effects. (1) He’s often paying more attention to the things that go wrong in the course of the day because he’s always gathering evidence to support his theory that the world is against him. This makes him miss celebrating all of the things that are going right. (2) He sometimes has fear or anxiety about trying new things because of an expectation of being the unlucky one who doesn’t succeed.

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24 Part I The Transition to College Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. Your mindset is a purely internal thing, but its effects are found in all areas of your life. Although it only constitutes a pattern of thought in your brain, it shapes your actions, interactions, habits, and way of life. This is why it is so important to understand, deconstruct, and be critical of the origins and implications of your mindset. Working to do this won’t just change the way you think it also has the power to change the way you experience life. One way to break down and understand this concept of mindset is to ask yourself what you’re good at or what you could become good at. This is one way to under- stand your attitudes about different skills and activities. Your mindset is fundamental to your college experience. You don’t come to college with a blank slate and you can’t pretend that now that you’re here you get to decide everything about your life. There’s no question that your previous experiences and entrenched beliefs have not disappeared. But if you can be aware of the mindset you’re coming into college with, you can work to shape it, improve it, and use it to be successful. Facets of Mindset Let’s look at a few facets of mindset. We call them facets because mindset is a complex concept and scholars have taken many different approaches to under- standing and explaining it. A facet is one side of a many-sided object. Imagine a gem and that each one of these frameworks is one side of the gem. The theories aren’t in opposition to one another they are simply multiple ways to understand the complex concept. We present these facets as interconnected and mutually S E C T I O N 2.2 CRITICAL MOMENT Instructor My best friend believes that the world is against him. Not in a huge way but in a bunch of little ways. He stubs his toe or drops a knife and the look on his face communicates, “See, it happened to me again.” Of course he doesn’t pay attention to all of the times that he walks through a room without stubbing his toe and all of the meals where all the utensils stay on the table. This mindset or attitude has significant effects. (1) He’s often paying more attention to the things that go wrong in the course of the day because he’s always gathering evidence to support his theory that the world is against him. This makes him miss celebrating all of the things that are going right. (2) He sometimes has fear or anxiety about trying new things because of an expectation of being the unlucky one who doesn’t succeed.

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23 Chapter 2 Mindset Matters Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. What Is Mindset? Why Does It Matter? In order to help you own your experience and recognize your power, this chapter focuses on both the power your mindset has over you and the power you hold to shape this mindset. This chapter will lead you through a few ways to think about your mindset, which are applicable to life in general, college, and the world beyond. Mindset is not an external motivator rather, it helps you own the power that already lies within you and utilize that power to work intentionally toward your goals. What is mindset? Put simply, mindset describes habits of our mind that are shaped by previous experience. Just as you have habits of action or ritual or routine, you also have habits of mind: mindsets. Mindset names habituated ways of thinking. Because it is habituated, we tend to be unaware of or less conscious about it—it becomes an automatic way of seeing something rather than a deci- sion or intention. Sometimes, even when we have encounters or experiences that challenge our habituated beliefs or attitudes, we don’t change them because they are so deeply ingrained in us. Instead, we think that the experience or encoun- ter is an exception or a fluke. Or perhaps we just find it difficult to get out of a deeply habitual way of thinking. Mindsets can become self-perpetuating ways of ordering and anticipating our experiences and interactions. While that may save time, it is also problematic, because like many habits, (thumb sucking, eating junk food, binge watching), it might not be healthy, or productive. It’s a habit because we engage in it automatically and without actively choosing it. Habits, or more specifically bad habits, get in the way of making a better choice. Habits of mind, our mindset, can get in the way of seeing old or new things in a new way. And just like it takes significant conscious effort to break a habit like nail-biting, it takes significant conscious effort to shift your mindset. S E C T I O N 2.1 THINK ABOUT IT Reflect on expectations you have for yourself and your experience at college. What are they? Where do they come from? How do they make you feel?

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25 Chapter 2 Mindset Matters Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. TRY THIS Do you think you could “get better” at doing certain activities? If you were given a chance to improve your abilities in the following activities, could you? Would your mind and/or body actually be able to do these things and improve upon them with practice? For the purpose of this exercise, you can measure how you “get better” in whatever way you like. Look at the following table. Open up your journal and either recreate the table or record your answers however you prefer. For each skill, decide whether or not you can get better at it, and if you would even want to. Make a note about it in your journal. Table 2.1 Mindset Inventory Skill I can get better I can’t get better Would I want to try? Cooking Meditating Telling jokes Dancing Taking tests Organizing Basketball Drawing Singing Writing poetry Solving algebra equations Listening Other Other 1. While looking at Table 2.1, ask yourself the following questions: Are there activities you are just good at? How did you learn you were good at them? Are there things you believe you simply aren’t good at? These are the types of things where you might have said to yourself or someone else, “My head/my body/my finger simply doesn’t work that way.” 2. Look at Table 2.1 and write one sentence that states a belief you hold about your ability in an area and your capacity to change. You can use the following template for your sentence: I believe I (can) (cannot) get better at _________________________ (if) (because) I ________________ ________________. 3. Be prepared to share your sentence with classmates and explain why your belief is correct. 2.2

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Page 3Part 1 The Transition to College click to expand contents

Page 115Part 2 Collaborating and Communicating click to expand contents

Page 213Part 3 Beyond College click to expand contents

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