Review of Carol Dweck's "Mindset" through the lens of Recovery.
This is the first book review in a series “Through the lens of Recovery” where we look at books and how what they teach us applies to addiction recovery.
Carol Dweck, an american psychologist, wrote the book “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” after her students nearly forced her to. They wanted Carol’s work to be out for the world to see so that people might improve their lives because of it. Carol’s work is a part of a long tradition in psychology that shows the power of our beliefs. Some of these beliefs we aren’t aware of, but still, no doubt have a huge impact on what we want and whether we succeed in getting it or not.
Let me remind you, I’ve seen over a thousand people go through treatment. Everyone “wants” it. Of course, there are differing degrees of desire. And it’s not simply something you want or don’t want, it’s not binary. It’s more complicated. What we want when we attempt to get clean is to feel okay. Unfortunately, our personal beliefs about our ability to get and stay sober, and what that means for our life, can influence our behavior negatively.
Carol writes in her introduction:
“In this book, you’ll learn how a simply belief about yourself-a belief we discovered in our research—guides a large part of your life. In fact, it permeates every part of your life. Much of what you think of as your personality, actually grows out of this “mindset”. Much of what may be preventing you from fulfilling your potential grows out it”.
Carol was a young researcher when she first became obsessed with how people cope with failure. She decided to study it by watching how students grapple with tough problems. One at a time, she brought children in and gave them puzzles to solve. They started rather easily and their difficulty increased over time. Carol expected differences among children in how they cope with difficulty. The reality was something she didn’t expect.
Some kids, when confronted with hard problems actually got excited loving the challenge. One child looked up after struggling and said, “ You know, I was hoping this would be informative!” Carol had always thought you either coped with failure or you didn’t. She had never realized that some people “loved” failure. To be more clear, what differentiated these children from others weren’t that they loved failure. There was a belief behind their actions - it’s almost as if they knew that human qualities like intelligence could be cultivated. They weren’t discouraged by failure because they didn’t think they were failing. They knew they were learning. These children had what Carol calls a “growth mindset.” Other people, including Carol, at the time, believed human qualities were carved in stone. You were intelligent or you weren’t. You were born a success or failure, essentially, and couldn’t really change if you tried. This belief is held by people who Carol asserts have a“fixed mindset.” Those plagued with the fixed mindset often don’t even realize that’s what they believe. However, their actions tend to support that belief. If you’re anything like me, consciously choosing to believe differently can affect your life in ways you could never imagine.
What makes people believe what they believe? Why do we differ so drastically in what we how we act and fare in life? This question has been asked forever: Why are some people more smart, moral, or disciplined than others? And are these qualities fixed? Or can they be developed? And for us addicts and alcoholics: What are the consequences of believing that your ability to be sober and enjoy it is something that you can develop as opposed to believing that you are doomed to forever craving something that destroys you?
Whether or not you are born a certain way, doomed or blessed forever, is an age old debate about human nature. Experts have lined up on both sides. Many have claimed there are physical and measurable basis for the differences in humans, making them, as Carol points out, “unavoidable and unalterable”. The basis for these claims included: phrenology(measurements of bumps on the skull), craniology(size and shape of skull), and now genes. Phrenology and craniology are both considered pseudoscience now. Meaning, they were mistakenly regarded as based on scientific method, which they were not. Genes, on the other hand are more scientific but it’s clear we don’t understand them entirely.
On the other hand, experts on the other side have pointed to measurable differences in people’s backgrounds, experiences, training, and ways of learning. In other words, this is a debate on nature vs. nurture. You’d be surprised to learn, as I was, that Alfred Binet, the inventor of the IQ test, was a champion on this side of the debate. This is surprising because the IQ test, as I thought I knew it, was meant to summarize children’s unalterable intelligence. I love being wrong. The more I’m shown where I’m wrong, the less I may need to be wrong in the future. I believed Alfred Binet created a test to measure intelligence and your IQ is rather “fixed”. As Carol put it, that wasn’t exactly the case: “In fact, no. Binet, a Frenchman working in Paris in the early twentieth century, designed this test to identify children who were not profiting from the Paris public schools, so that new educational programs could be designed to get them on track.” Binet didn’t deny individual differences in children’s intellect. He did, however, believe that education and practice could bring about fundamental changes in intelligence. He wrote in Modern Ideas About Children, “A few modern philosphers assert that intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. We must protest against this brutal pessimism..With practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, memory, our judgment and literally become more intelligent than we were before.”
Is anyone correct in their assessments of nature vs. nurture and which is more important? Throughout the years, the more we’ve researched, the more we’ve learned it’s incredibly complicated. One thing we know for sure is that its not one or the other entirely. If you are interested in genes, I suggest Robert Sapolsky’s Behave. If you haven’t cultivated the fortitude to read that book(it’s tough), take it from Gilbert Gottlieb(no, not Gottfried), prominent neuroscientist who said “ not only do genes and environment cooperate as we develop, but genes require input from the environment to work properly.” In other words, genes function according to our environment. I highly doubt anyone is 100% right in their assessments on this topic, unless their assessment is I’m not sure. However, we have proven that those who assert these qualities are fixed are clearly wrong:
You can increase your memory[1] - and it seems to be a skill more than anything.
You can increase your attention span, via fasting[2], meditation[3], and refraining from multitasking[4]
Although personalities seem to be relatively stable throughout life, we have research showing that our career most certainly can alter our personality[5]
Your career is where you spend a decent portion of your life. You could call your career your environment to a degree. I would assume, that many personalities don’t change throughout life because typically we insulate ourselves with people who don’t challenge who we are, or inspire us to become better. This is especially true with addicts and alcoholics.
Either way, I assume that’s enough information on nature vs. nurture for you to understand you don’t know shit. Or, hopefully, it’s enough information for you to dispense with old beliefs that no longer serve you. At the absolute very least, what needs to be understood is that you have zero control over your genes. You were born with what you were born with. However, you do have control over the following:
Effort (how hard you try)
Consistency (how often you try)
Attitude (your way of thinking, typically reflected in your behavior)
I’ve asked hundreds of clients if they agree that they are in control over the above. I’m not joking when I say I have never had a client tell me that they don’t control their effort, attitude, or consistency. Now check this out, Carol gave a scenario to some kids to see how they would feel if it happened to them. The scenario is:
“One day, you go to a class that is really important to you and that you like a lot. The professor returns the midterm papers to the class. You got a C+. You’re very disappointed. That evening on the way back to your home, you find that you’ve gotten a parking ticket. Being really frustrated, you call your best friend to share your experience but are sort of brushed off.”
She then asked them what they would think had this situation happened to them? How would they feel? What would they do? Carol found out that those with a fixed mindset said things like this:
I’d feel like a reject … My life is pitiful.
I’m a total failure.. Somebody must be out to destroy me.
I’m an idiot.. Life is unfair and all efforts are useless
I’m worthless and dumb - everyone is better than me.. Somebody upstairs doesn’t like me
In other words, they would see this entire situation as a direct measurement of their worth as a human. Carol wondered whether they were pessimists or just had low self-esteem. Nope, it seemed they felt just as worthy as those with a growth mindset(as long as they aren’t coping with failure). If they failed, they were no longer worthy. They couldn’t feel good about themselves unless everything around them went according to plan. Unfortunately, life sucks sometimes. And for addicts and alcoholics just beginning to rebuild, life can suck for a while. We need to understand that this isn’t a measurement of our worth - but a stepping stone to finally feel worthy again. Once Carol understood how these situations made the fixed mindset(ers) feel, she wondered how their feelings led them to acting afterward. She got responses like this:
I wouldn’t bother to put so much time and effort into doing well in anything(dont let anyone measure you again)
Do nothing
Stay in bed
Get drunk
Eat Chocolate
Pick a fight
Cry
The funny thing about all of this? Carol deliberately made the grade a C+, not an F. As she said, “It was a midterm, not a final. It was a parking ticket, not a car wreck.” She didn’t want them to be responding to a catastrophe. She wanted to know their response to a regular old tough day.
The growth mindset(ers) responses?
I need to try harder in class, be more careful when parking, and wonder if my friend had a bad day.
The C+ would tell me that I’d have to work a lot harder in the class, but I have the rest of the semester to improve my grade
I’d start thinking about studying harder (or studying in a different way) for my next test in that class, I’d pay the ticket, and I’d work things out with my best friend the next time we speak.
Work hard on my next paper, speak to teacher, be more careful where I park or contest the ticket, and find out what’s wrong with my friend.
As you can see, the ones with the growth mindset coped directly. Honestly, it reminded me of a step ten, finding where you are wrong. The fixed mindset group coped by not putting themselves in the position to fail again(aka don’t try). This reminds me of perfectionism. While it can be beneficial, it often keeps us from ever finishing anything. We are so terrified of “failure” we develop this defense mechanism that makes it seem like we try really hard, and maybe we do! But in the end we get nothing done because we judge ourselves too harshly.
Listen, you didn’t choose who your parents were. You didn’t choose where you grew up. You probably didn’t have much of a choice on who you grew up around. You can’t change a lot about you. You certainly can’t change your past. Who your parents are, where you grew up, who you grew up around, your experience of life - these things developed you to be in the mindset you’re in now.
Your parents might have told you your whole life that you’ll never change. Your parents may have never changed, or tried to and failed, reinforcing your belief that you can’t. You may have removed yourself from friends who ended up doing well simply because being around them made you feel worse about your position. You may have tried and failed a hundred times prior, giving you loads of memories reinforcing your belief on why you can’t do this. All of that is bullshit.
Addicts and alcoholics spend their entire drinking and using career explaining why they are the way they are. It’s hard to get out of this mindset.
I hear it all the time:
I can’t read, I always have to re-read pages.
I can’t sit still, meditation doesn’t work for me.
I can’t journal, I have nothing to write about
These cravings will never go away.
I could go on for hours with those. The fact is, if they put more effort into reading they would improve their reading ability(along with numerous other abilities). The fact is, they can’t sit still because every time they try they give up, and don’t continue. The fact is, they do have something to journal, because they have thoughts. Lastly, as Dr Judd Brewer says about cravings: “They’re like stray cats - if you stop feeding them, they will go away”
Put yourself around people who will cultivate your belief in you. Put yourself around people who are challenging themselves, coming up short, and challenging themselves again. For some reason, addicts and alcoholics think successful people had a road paved for them.(ironically very few of us know shit about successful people, we just imagine it was easy because it’s a little softer on us) No, in nearly every case of success, what happens is successful person refused to give up. They didn’t quit the job when their boss talked to ‘em sideways. They didn’t get high when their girl left them. They didn’t think they were a failure when they lost that client. These “losses” were almost fuel to them, they became motivated by setbacks. Because of this, they learn from their experience and reorient their life as much as possible in order to decrease the likelihood it will happen again.
It’s easy to not get high or drink for three months if nothing bad happens. As soon as a bad thing happens, you have a program of acting. Understand this. Respond differently. In the last few years, I’ve chosen to believe that tough situations are teaching me. Hell, every tough situation I’ve ever been in has taught me something. In the past, it just didn’t change how I acted. After all, I could put a substance in my body to not feel consequences. That’s way easier than learning and changing.
Benjamin Barber, an eminent sociologist, once said, ‘I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures…. I divide the world into the learners and non-learners’
Do you really want to continue learning lessons you’ve already learned before? Remember, those with the growth mindset were controlling their attitudes in response to situations. It’s not to say they didn’t feel “failure” as intense as the fixed mindset group. The difference was in how the two groups related to their experience. We certainly have control over how we relate to an experience. Once again, the solution to recovery, and life - change the way you think. How about, change the way you think from a destructive point of view, to a constructive point of view. The only thing the your way relating to your experience is doing is keeping you the same. You must relate to your experience in a way that can help you, not further give you reason why you should stay the same.
I used to always say to my clients:
You can’t control what happens to you, but you can control what that means to you, and simply changing that could change what happens to you.
Or continue to believe you can’t grow, stay sober, read well, exercise, or progress in life at all. Keep telling me why you can’t. If you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them. (not my quote)
P.S. This book has TONS more information in it. It is an easy read and I suggest it to all of you. You can find it here.
