Here are my favorite Growth Mindset cat memes:
This reminds me of one of my mottos: "If it doesn't work, try again. If it still doesn't work, try something else." Sometimes things do not work the way we want it to because of a simple mistake or because we are doing something wrong. Perhaps, looking at something at the wrong angle. For example, I made some pretty bad quiz grades in Physiology. One week, I decided to do something different. I made more of an effort to go to Grad TA's office hours and action center. I saw my grades improve drastically. Before I move to a new strategy, I like to try the current strategy several times to make sure it does not work before I attempt another method.
For some odd reason, when tests are a few days away or the next day, I am suddenly more productive during my study sessions. I think the main culprit is stress. When I am in a stressful situation, it seems like my blood is pumping faster, adrenaline running through my veins, and melatonin production halted. The stress helps me focus better. One morning, I had a Physics test. Physics was a subject that I did not like. One, it was not comprehendible to me and two, it was an 8:30am class. I would always arrive a couple minutes late to class on a daily basis but it was a test day so I had to be on time. I was rushing to get out of the house, speeding, and fast paced walked to class so much so my legs started to cramp. As students were starting to file into the class, I made it up the stairs. I was out of breath, and flustered. But, it ended up being the highest exam grade I received!
I think an important aspect of the Growth Mindset is that your abilities can always be improved and it is not stagnant. Although as I get older, I find that improvement can be hard. Over winter break, I tried to learn snowboarding. I only got about 45% of it down. It was difficult to maneuver the snowboard with only one foot strapped on. My cousin, Phillip, had trouble breaking on the snow with his snowboard because he thought forgot that both feet were strapped to the snowboard. He eventually made it down the mountain while doing several flips in the snow. I was proud of the minimal improvements that I made, but it proves that you can teach old dogs new tricks if you try hard enough.
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