Monday morning, November 24th. Watching someone apologize for "having a fixed mindset" after admitting they're just not interested in learning something.

The Growth Mindset Gospel

Carol Dweck's research on mindset was genuinely valuable. She found that students who believed intelligence was malleable (growth mindset) rather than fixed performed better than those who believed intelligence was innate (fixed mindset). The growth mindset students persisted through challenges, saw effort as meaningful, and learned from criticism.

This research offered something important: Evidence that our beliefs about ourselves shape our outcomes. If you think you can improve, you're more likely to put in effort. If you think ability is fixed, you give up easier.

But then the self-improvement industrial complex got hold of it.

Now, growth mindset has been weaponized into a universal explanation for success and failure. Successful? You had a growth mindset. Failed? You had a fixed mindset. Struggling? Work on your mindset. Not progressing fast enough? Your mindset is holding you back.

The message is seductive: Your outcomes are in your control. You're not limited by circumstances, talent, or resources. You're only limited by your beliefs. Change your mindset, change your life. Anyone can do anything if they just believe they can improve.

Thesis: The popularized version of growth mindset has become toxic self-blame disguised as empowerment. It takes a nuanced finding about learning contexts and turns it into an unfalsifiable ideology where every limitation is reframed as insufficient belief in growth. Real constraints get dismissed as "fixed mindset thinking." The growth mindset trap makes you responsible for overcoming obstacles that aren't actually surmountable through belief alone.

What Growth Mindset Actually Showed

Before we talk about what went wrong, let's be clear about what Dweck's research actually found:

The Original Research Context

What Dweck studied: Students' beliefs about intelligence and their response to academic challenges. She wasn't studying career success, entrepreneurship, physical abilities, or life outcomes generally.

What she found:

  • Students who believed intelligence was malleable tried harder when faced with difficult problems
  • These students interpreted failure as information about effort needed, not evidence of inadequacy
  • Students with fixed beliefs about intelligence gave up faster when problems got hard
  • Praising effort rather than innate talent encouraged growth mindset

What the research supported: In learning contexts, believing you can improve through effort leads to better outcomes than believing ability is fixed. Mindset affects behavior, which affects results.

What the research didn't claim:

  • That all limitations can be overcome with the right mindset
  • That growth mindset applies equally across all domains
  • That circumstances, resources, and actual constraints don't matter
  • That everyone can achieve the same outcomes with sufficient belief in growth
  • That having a growth mindset makes you better at things automatically

The Popularized Distortion

What happened to these findings:

  • Took research on students learning in classroom contexts
  • Generalized it to all achievement in all domains
  • Stripped out the importance of actual ability, resources, and circumstances
  • Made it prescriptive: you should have a growth mindset about everything
  • Turned it into an explanation for all success and failure
  • Created an unfalsifiable framework where questioning growth mindset is itself evidence of fixed mindset

The result: Growth mindset became a moral imperative. Having a "fixed mindset" about anything is now seen as a personal failing. Admitting limitations is weakness. Accepting constraints is giving up.

How Growth Mindset Became Toxic

When you take a nuanced research finding and turn it into a universal self-help principle, predictable distortions emerge:

Every Failure Becomes Your Fault

The growth mindset narrative: If you believe you can improve and put in effort, you'll succeed. Therefore, if you didn't succeed, you either didn't truly believe in growth or didn't try hard enough.

What this creates: Unfalsifiable self-blame. You can't question whether the goal was achievable—that would be fixed mindset thinking. You can't point to external obstacles—that's making excuses. You can't acknowledge actual limitations—that's limiting beliefs.

Example: You try to break into a competitive field. You work hard, take courses, practice deliberately, network extensively. After two years, you're not making progress.

Growth mindset interpretation: You must not have had a true growth mindset. You must have been holding yourself back with limiting beliefs. You need to work on your mindset and try harder.

Alternative interpretation: Maybe the field is genuinely hard to break into. Maybe you started too late. Maybe the market is saturated. Maybe you lack specific advantages others have. Maybe your skills are better suited elsewhere.

The growth mindset trap makes the first interpretation mandatory. Considering the alternatives is "fixed mindset thinking." You're not allowed to conclude that something might not be achievable for you specifically. Every failure is mindset failure.

Real Constraints Get Dismissed

The growth mindset narrative: Constraints are just beliefs. "I can't" is fixed mindset. "I can't yet" is growth mindset. There are no real limitations, only limiting beliefs.

What this misses: Some constraints are actually real.

Physical constraints: "I'm 5'6" and 30 years old—I probably can't become an NBA player" isn't fixed mindset thinking. It's reality. Adding "yet" doesn't make it achievable.

Resource constraints: "I can't afford to take an unpaid internship while supporting my family" isn't a limiting belief. It's a real economic constraint. Growth mindset doesn't pay rent.

Time constraints: "I can't master piano, programming, painting, and parkour simultaneously while working full-time" isn't fixed mindset. It's acknowledging finite time.

Opportunity constraints: "Breaking into this field is harder without connections" isn't making excuses. Nepotism and networks are real. Believing in growth doesn't create opportunities that don't exist.

The growth mindset trap teaches you to dismiss real constraints as "just your mindset." This isn't empowering—it's gaslighting. You're told your constraints aren't real, you just need to believe harder. When you still can't overcome them, it's your fault for not having enough growth mindset.

It Creates Moral Judgment Around Acceptance

The growth mindset narrative: Accepting limitations is giving up. Acknowledging constraints is defeatist. If you truly believed in growth, you wouldn't accept any ceiling on what you can achieve.

What this creates: Moral judgment around realistic self-assessment. Accepting you're not good at something isn't self-awareness—it's fixed mindset. Deciding to focus on your strengths isn't strategic—it's limiting beliefs.

Example: "I'm not a visual artist. I can learn basic design principles, but I'll never have a strong aesthetic sense. I should partner with someone who does rather than forcing myself to develop this skill."

Growth mindset police: "That's fixed mindset! You're limiting yourself with that belief! You could become great at design if you believed in growth and practiced deliberately!"

Reality: Maybe you could improve. Maybe you could even become decent. But opportunity cost is real. Spending thousands of hours becoming mediocre at something you're not naturally inclined toward might not be the best use of finite time. Accepting this isn't moral failure.

The growth mindset trap makes acceptance of any limitation morally suspect. You should always be trying to grow in all directions. Choosing not to is character weakness. Strategic focus becomes psychological deficiency.

It Ignores Actual Distribution of Abilities

The growth mindset narrative: With enough effort and the right mindset, anyone can achieve anything. Outcomes are primarily about mindset and effort, not about actual differences in ability.

What this misses: Abilities actually do vary. Not everything is equally achievable for everyone regardless of starting point.

Yes, mindset matters. The person who believes they can't improve probably won't. The person who believes improvement is possible will try harder and achieve more than they would have otherwise.

But mindset isn't the only thing that matters. Two people with identical growth mindsets applying identical effort to identical training won't achieve identical results. Genetic factors, early experiences, neurological differences, physical characteristics—these all affect actual capacity.

Acknowledging this isn't fixed mindset. It's reality. Someone with severe dyslexia faces real challenges with reading that aren't just about believing in growth. Someone with developmental coordination disorder faces real motor challenges that aren't just limiting beliefs. Someone who's 40 starting ballet faces real physical constraints compared to someone who started at 6.

The growth mindset trap treats all acknowledgment of actual variation in ability as fixed mindset thinking. This isn't empowering—it's denying reality. You can acknowledge real differences while still believing in improvement. "I'll probably never be an Olympic-level athlete" and "I can definitely improve my fitness significantly" are both true.

It Became Employer Gaslighting

Corporate version of growth mindset: "We only hire people with a growth mindset. In our culture, we believe everyone can achieve anything. There are no limits except the ones you create."

Translation: "We expect unlimited flexibility and constant improvement without providing resources, training, or support. If you struggle, it's your mindset problem. If you burn out, you didn't believe in growth enough. If you point out unrealistic expectations, you have a fixed mindset."

Growth mindset language is now used to:

  • Justify lack of training ("Just adopt a growth mindset!")
  • Dismiss complaints about unrealistic goals ("Fixed mindset!")
  • Blame employees for systemic problems ("The only limits are in your mind!")
  • Avoid accountability for poor management ("Leaders have growth mindsets!")

Example: Company sets impossible targets. Employees point out the targets aren't achievable without more resources. Management: "That's fixed mindset thinking! With a growth mindset, anything is possible!"

The growth mindset trap lets organizations externalize responsibility. Not meeting impossible goals isn't the organization's fault for setting them—it's the employees' fault for not believing hard enough.

What Growth Mindset Actually Requires

The research on growth mindset wasn't wrong. The popularized distortion is what's toxic. What does the research actually support?

Growth Mindset Works in Learning Contexts

Where growth mindset helps: When learning new skills where improvement is actually possible through effort and practice. The student who believes they can get better at math through study does better than the student who thinks math ability is fixed.

This is useful. Encouraging students to see challenges as opportunities to improve rather than tests of innate ability leads to better outcomes.

But this is much narrower than the popular interpretation. It's about learning contexts with clear paths to improvement, not about all achievement in all domains.

It Requires Actual Feedback Loops

Dweck's research involved clear, rapid feedback. Students solved problems and immediately found out if they were right. They could try different approaches and see what worked.

Growth mindset helps when:

  • You can actually practice the thing
  • You get feedback on whether you're improving
  • There's a clear path between effort and improvement
  • The domain has known methods for developing skill

Growth mindset doesn't help when:

  • Feedback is absent, unclear, or comes years later
  • Improvement isn't actually possible no matter the effort
  • The path between effort and results is opaque or random
  • Success depends heavily on factors outside your control

Example where it works: Learning to code. You write code, it either works or doesn't, you debug, you improve. Clear feedback, direct improvement path.

Example where it doesn't: "Becoming successful" generally. Success in most domains depends on countless factors beyond effort and mindset. Feedback is unclear or comes too late. The path is opaque. Luck matters enormously.

The growth mindset trap applies learning-context findings to situations without clear feedback loops or paths to improvement.

It Works Alongside Actual Resources and Support

Dweck's successful interventions involved more than just changing mindset: They changed teaching methods, provided specific feedback, created supportive environments, gave students strategies for improvement.

Mindset mattered, but it wasn't alone. Students also needed actual instruction, resources, and support.

The popularized version stripped this out. Now it's just "change your mindset" without the accompanying resources, training, or support structures.

This is why corporate "growth mindset culture" often fails: It's mindset without the actual investment in development. You're told to believe in growth while being given no path to grow.

The Monday Truth

Here's what the growth mindset trap gets wrong:

Growth mindset was a finding about learning in specific contexts, not a universal theory of achievement. Applying it to all success and failure turns useful research into toxic ideology.

Real constraints exist. Physical limitations, resource constraints, opportunity structure, actual distributions of ability—these aren't just mindset problems. Dismissing all constraints as "fixed mindset thinking" is gaslighting, not empowerment.

Accepting limitations isn't moral failure. Sometimes the strategic choice is to work around constraints rather than trying to overcome them. Focusing on strengths instead of grinding on weaknesses isn't giving up—it's intelligent resource allocation.

Every failure isn't mindset failure. Sometimes you actually can't achieve something, not because you don't believe in growth, but because real obstacles exist that mindset alone can't overcome.

The unfalsifiable trap: Any criticism of growth mindset ideology gets labeled as fixed mindset thinking. This makes the framework immune to reality checks. If questioning whether everything is achievable through belief is itself evidence of insufficient belief, you've created an ideology, not a scientific finding.

Here's what to actually do:

Apply growth mindset where it actually works: Learning contexts with clear feedback loops and real paths to improvement. Believe you can get better at specific skills through practice. This is useful and supported by research.

Reject growth mindset as universal ideology: Not everything is achievable through belief and effort. Some constraints are real. Some goals aren't reachable for everyone. Acknowledging this isn't fixed mindset—it's realism.

Distinguish between empowering belief and self-blame: "I can improve with effort" is empowering. "My only limitations are my beliefs" sets you up for toxic self-blame when reality intrudes.

Accept strategic limitation: You can't excel at everything. Choosing what to pursue and what to accept as good enough isn't moral failure. Finite time and energy require trade-offs. This is wisdom, not fixed mindset.

Reject unfalsifiable frameworks: If the framework says questioning it proves it's right, you're in ideology territory. Scientific findings should be falsifiable. "Growth mindset applies to everything and questioning this is fixed mindset" is ideology.

Recognize when organizations weaponize it: When growth mindset language is used to dismiss resource constraints, justify unrealistic expectations, or blame individuals for systemic problems, it's gaslighting wearing research's clothing.

Hold the nuance: Yes, believing you can improve helps in learning contexts. No, this doesn't mean all limitations are mindset problems. Both are true. The research showed something useful and narrow. The popularization made it toxic and universal.

Most importantly: Real obstacles exist. Economic constraints, physical limitations, opportunity structures, actual distributions of ability—these aren't just limiting beliefs. Telling someone their constraints are in their head when they're actually real is cruel, not empowering.

The uncomfortable truth: We weaponized growth mindset because it's more comfortable than acknowledging unfairness. If everyone can achieve anything with the right mindset, then success is deserved and failure is deserved. You don't have to think about privilege, luck, systemic barriers, or unequal starting points. Just blame the people who "didn't have growth mindset."

But Dweck's research didn't show that everything is achievable through belief. It showed that in learning contexts, believing improvement is possible leads to better outcomes than believing ability is fixed. That's it. That's the finding.

Taking this and turning it into "you can do anything, and if you can't, it's your mindset's fault" isn't science. It's ideology. It's victim-blaming. It's refusing to acknowledge that some people face real obstacles others don't.

Growth mindset was supposed to liberate us from fixed beliefs about our abilities. Instead, it became another stick to beat ourselves with. Now every failure is your fault for not believing hard enough. Every limitation is just mindset. Every constraint is just limiting beliefs.

The real growth mindset? Accepting that:

  • You can improve many things through effort
  • Some constraints are actually real
  • Strategic acceptance of limits is wisdom
  • Focusing on what you can change is more useful than blaming yourself for not believing hard enough

That's the nuanced truth the research supported. Everything else is just self-help ideology dressed in research language.

Stop weaponizing growth mindset. Start acknowledging reality. You're not failing because your mindset is wrong. Sometimes the obstacles are real. Sometimes the goals aren't achievable. Sometimes accepting this and working with reality is smarter than believing harder.

Growth mindset is a useful tool for learning. It's not a universal explanation for success, a moral imperative, or a solution to structural problems. Treat it accordingly.

The growth mindset trap: Growth mindset supposed to liberate us from fixed beliefs about abilities. Instead became another stick to beat ourselves with. Now every failure is your fault for not having right mindset. Every limitation evidence you're not trying hard enough. Problem isn't your abilities—it's your attitude. Thesis: Popularized version of growth mindset has become toxic self-blame disguised as empowerment. Takes nuanced finding about learning contexts and turns into unfalsifiable ideology where every limitation reframed as insufficient belief in growth. Real constraints dismissed as "fixed mindset thinking." Makes you responsible for overcoming obstacles that aren't surmountable through belief alone. Dweck studied students' beliefs about intelligence and response to academic challenges. Found students believing intelligence was malleable tried harder, interpreted failure as information about effort needed not inadequacy. What research supported: in learning contexts, believing you can improve through effort leads to better outcomes than believing ability is fixed. What it didn't claim: all limitations can be overcome with right mindset, applies equally across all domains, circumstances and resources don't matter, everyone can achieve same outcomes with sufficient belief. Popularized version generalized to all achievement, stripped importance of ability/resources/circumstances, made prescriptive, turned into explanation for all success and failure, created unfalsifiable framework. Every failure becomes your fault (if didn't succeed, didn't truly believe in growth or didn't try hard enough, unfalsifiable self-blame). Real constraints get dismissed (physical/resource/time/opportunity constraints dismissed as "just your mindset," gaslighting not empowerment). Creates moral judgment around acceptance (accepting limitations seen as giving up, acknowledging constraints defeatist, makes acceptance of any limitation morally suspect). Ignores actual distribution of abilities (abilities actually vary, genetic factors, early experiences, neurological differences, physical characteristics affect capacity, acknowledging this isn't fixed mindset). Became employer gaslighting (justify lack of training, dismiss complaints about unrealistic goals, blame employees for systemic problems, let organizations externalize responsibility). Growth mindset works in learning contexts with clear feedback loops and paths to improvement (students solving problems with immediate feedback). Requires actual resources and support alongside mindset (Dweck's interventions changed teaching methods, provided feedback, created supportive environments). Apply growth mindset where it actually works—learning contexts with clear feedback loops. Reject as universal ideology—not everything achievable through belief and effort, some constraints real. Distinguish empowering belief from self-blame. Accept strategic limitation—finite time requires trade-offs, choosing what to pursue is wisdom not fixed mindset. Reject unfalsifiable frameworks. Recognize when organizations weaponize it. Hold the nuance—believing you can improve helps in learning contexts, but doesn't mean all limitations are mindset problems. Real obstacles exist—economic constraints, physical limitations, opportunity structures, distributions of ability aren't just limiting beliefs. We weaponized growth mindset because it's more comfortable than acknowledging unfairness. Research showed that in learning contexts, believing improvement is possible leads to better outcomes than believing ability is fixed—that's it. Turning this into "you can do anything, if you can't it's your mindset's fault" isn't science, it's ideology and victim-blaming. Growth mindset was supposed to liberate us but became another stick to beat ourselves with. Real growth mindset accepts: you can improve many things through effort; some constraints are actually real; strategic acceptance of limits is wisdom; focusing on what you can change is more useful than blaming yourself. Growth mindset is useful tool for learning, not universal explanation for success or solution to structural problems.

Today's Sketch

Nov 24, 2025