Describe The Relationship Between Success And Failure

One of my greatest strengths in school is having a desire to improve my studies and reach my goals. I maintain an excellent grade point average in hopes of attending a graphic design college. Another strength that I acknowledge is my mistakes and am willing to seek for help. If I realize that I can't finish a paper due to lack of knowledge, I will ask for help. An additional strength I have as a student is patience. Patience is a key quality for students because we have to put up with teachers and other students we might not be able to succeed with. Besides these qualities of a valuable student, I also have enough time to study and also perform very well in several classes. Although I may have a great deal of strengths as a student, I also have some weaknesses. One weakness that I have is being quiet. A reason for this weakness is I have a lot to offer to a class, but being quiet and shy effects me to being able to stand up and say what I have to say. With that being said I can become easily distracted. If a teacher is talking about a paper that's going to be due next week, and a group of student are whispering my mind will wander off into their

Do you think intelligence is a fixed trait? If you do, then you might be one of many people with a fixed mind-set. In Carol S. Dweck’s an essay, “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids”, she describes fixed and growth mind-sets. She describes how they affect school, and how they affect social relationships as well. The two central ideas of “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids” are that fixed mind-sets can make a person shy away from a challenge and that growth mind-sets can be put into place by parents.

One of the first things a child is taught while growing up is the well-known cliché, practice makes perfect. This phrase has been the basis for trial and error situations time and time again, where if it doesn’t work the first time then keep trying. In Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell leaves the audience with a memorable observation, the 10,000 hour rule. The basis of the 10,000 hour rule is that an area of interest requires 10,000 hours of practice in order to become an expert. Although this may be true in some situations, how can someone practice something they are unable to do? Natural talent and ability are crucial characteristics in order to become an expert in any area. This phenomena highly lends itself to the observations made about intelligence and genetics. The main misunderstanding when considering whether this argument is fundamentally nature or nurture is the difference between intelligence and education. Many consider education to be exactly equal to intelligence, which is the basis for the believing that working hard will essentially result in intelligence. Intelligence is considered as “a very general mental capability that, among other things, involved the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience” (Colangelo19-39.) Qualities that make up the realm of intelligence are things that people are simply born with and cannot easily be taught and trained. One may be able to work twice as hard as the next person and equalize their achievements, but the essential difference at work is the way the mind process information and the difference between intelligence and education. Although some consider intelligence to be an environmentally based attribute, they fail to understand the true meaning of

I have a few weaknesses when it comes to school. One of my weaknesses is nervousness. I tend to get nervous when it’s time to take a test. Another weakness is thinking I will not succeed. I am always afraid that I will fail, and not move forward. I seem to always second guess myself when it comes to writing a paper or speaking in front a room full of people. I am working on each of my weaknesses.

Passion and determination towards long term goals (otherwise known as ‘grit’) are parts of cognitive development. (Kantrowitz 2016). Grit is seen to be necessary for academic expertise in all fields ranging from sciences to the arts. (Ericsson, Prietula and Cokely 2007). Natural born Intelligence Quotient, also known as ‘IQ’, is described as a person’s ability to complete problems and understand concepts. This is compared across the population to give an average IQ score (Latham 2006). However, can this number accurately measure whether a human will become an expert in a field sooner than a grittier person? The focus of this essay is to evaluate whether grit or IQ has the most positive effect on cognitive development.

Intelligence can be developed through experience and learning. In Carol S. Dweck’s who is in fact a PhD expert in the field of psychology wrote an article, “Transforming Student’s Motivation to Learn,” she states, “Results showed that what students believe about their brains - whether they see their intelligence as something that’s fixed or something that can grow and change – has profound effect on their motivation, learning, and school achievement.” Essentially what this is illustrating is that having a fixed or growth mindset can minimize students from being terrified of failure and in addition faced and embrace their challenges rather than running from them. Students need to understand an intelligent mindset is a paramount pathway in becoming successful, and eventually one needs to not be easily discouraged at the first sight of a challenge, but become motivated and driven by failure, and in turn willing to work harder to accomplish something they want to succeed at. A perfect example of this is through Mike Rose’s school experiences, we can see how he demonstrates the concepts of a growth and fixed mindset.

There are two basic mindsets, growth and fixed. Carol Dweck, a world-renowned psychologist from Stanford University, discovered that people who operate in a growth mindset, believe that their simplest abilities can be advanced through commitment and diligent work. Growth mindset people think that their intelligence can be improved, and if they try hard and persevere they will succeed. Growth mindsets are the opposite of fixed mindsets. Fixed mindsets are people who think that they can’t change anything and were born with certain talents. In contrast, people with a fixed mindset imagine that their most fundamental qualities can not be changed and that, without effort, only talent can create

This quote is significant to the novel since it is Gladwell’s way of explaining to the reader how time and and where they come from affect the the level of success. He goes into depth in explaining how it isn’t their fault. They can’t control what their disadvantages are. As he tells the reader about World War II and and the time of when the depression fell it was just bad timing for some and great timing for others. Gladwell states “If you divide the Termites into two groups, with those born between 1903 and 1911 on one side, and those between 1912 and 1917 on the other, it turns out that the Terman failures are far more likely to have been born in the earlier group,” explaining how and an example of how certain people can just be unlucky.

We learn from Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success, that there are two different mindsets: the fixed and the growth. When you have a fixed mindset you think it is set in stone what your qualities and intelligence are. You usually lack motivation to try again, usually try to avoid challenges, they tend to ignore criticism; even if it’s just constructive, and they often feel threatened by other people’s success. A growth mindset is when you believe you can grow your basic qualities. You usually pick yourself back up when you get knocked down, embrace the challenges that are thrown at you, learn from criticism, and see the success of others as a form of learning.

Dweck’s work shows that students with a “growth mind-set” — those who believe that intelligence is not fixed but is expandable through effort and practice — are more likely to keep trying when faced with a challenge, and ultimately more likely to succeed, than those who are convinced that intelligence is something you’re born

Carol Dweck’s book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success asserts that humans have two mindsets: a fixed mindset is the belief that traits, such as intelligence and personality, are permanent and the growth mindset is the belief that traits can be developed. Dweck supports this claim by sharing her research, personal reflections, celebrity examples, and various anecdotes in the contexts of athletics, business/leadership, relationships, and parenting/teaching/coaching. Dweck’s purpose is to enable readers to understand the two mindsets in order to develop growth mindsets. Writing in an informal tone that explains psychology using simple vocabulary supported by examples from clients to working professionals to pop culture icons, Dweck writes

One of the most basic beliefs we carry about ourselves, Dweck found in her research, has to do with how we view and inhabit what we consider to be our personality. A “fixed mindset” is that we assumes that our intelligence, character, and creativity are static traits givens which we can’t change in any way, and success is the allegation of that inborn intelligence, an estimate of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; aiming for prosperity and dodging failure becomes a way of claiming the sense of being smart or skilled. A “growth mindset,” on the other hand, emphasis on challenge and sees failure as evidence of unintelligence but as a positive bounce

So basically people aren't born with the smart abilities, in fact, they learn their way up. Inspiring people to have a “ growth mindset,” invigorates development rather than having an aptitude, this stimulates high achievers in school and in their life.

Carol Dweck in the article “Brainology " talks about the different mindsets that create separate psychological worlds. The first mindset being a growth mindset. Believing you can you can work to gain intelligence, you get praised for hard work. Rather than having a fixed mindset where you believe you don't gain intelligence ether you’re born with it or not. People with the fixed mindset receive praise for their intelligence, requiring no work. "Those with a growth mindset had a very straightforward idea that the harder you work the more ability will grow even Geniuses had to work for their accomplishments.” Brainology raises students’ achievement by helping gain a growth mindset. Students that have a fixed mindset believe their intelligence

First off, who I am as a learner has changed over the past years. At times before, I wouldn’t take certain classes or assignments seriously and have learned my lessons when I failed. I believe having classmates at the time who weren’t as focused as I wanted to be, played a big role in my lack of understanding in classes. I understood later that if I felt learning was so important to me, I need to realize that it is my future and I needed to focus on my own. Having learner in my top 5 strengths defines me very well. Rath (2007) explains that, “The process, more than the content or the result, is especially exciting for you” (p.133). I believe this defines me as a learner because I enjoy having books in hand, opening up my notebook to write notes and learning new ways to understand the class. Regardless if the content is something I have to get in to or if I don’t do well on tests, I enjoy the process of studying and learning more even when I know I didn’t do so well; that is what motivates me. I believe as long as I keep this mindset and understand that this is my strength, I will continue to grow and further my education as much as possible. Even though I have failed a few of my last classes, I never let that stop me from continuing. Knowing that I have “failed” makes me realize I know I can do better and I try my hardest not to let it get me down. I will not get further if I don’t keep trying and as a learner I am a motivator to myself in my studies.