Mindset
While individuals with a growth mindset tend to believe that their basic abilities can be developed through hard work and dedication, those with a fixed mindset usually believe that their basic qualities such as talent or intellectual, are merely fixed traits. In simple terms, while people with a growth mindset develop a desire to learn and resilience for exceptional achievement, individuals with a fixed mindset spend most of their time documenting their talent and intelligence rather than developing them (Dweck 26). I have previously approached losing weight and living a healthy lifestyle with a fixed mindset. I was convinced that yoga and meditation were effective ways to reduce my weight. However, my beliefs deceived me. About two months ago, I started running. I did not entirely start the exercise from scratch. In the past, I would jog every once a while, perhaps twice a month. My initial run was just two miles at approximately 15 minutes per mile. That was quite slow. Nevertheless, for a noon-athlete, I felt equally good about it. In the subsequent weeks, I jogged for a couple more times each week. Ultimately, after I had jogged for at least three weeks, I set a goal for myself despite having the perspective that I would never be fast enough to impress anyone. As such, it would not have been sensible for me to consider speed as my goal. On the other hand, I could have picked a race to train for, either a half-miler of a 5000-kilometer race, but I knew how setting goals like this would end up. In other words, people usually quit running after their big race. Since I did not want to quit, I embraced running as a hobby. As such, I had to change my mindset from a fixed one to a growth mindset by embracing the challenges that would co0me my way. Even though I could skip a few days a week, the goal I had set made me not opt to quit. My goal made all the difference. Eventually, I could run fast and feel great about it. In retrospect, the days that I would run fast were far better than the good days since they reinforced my goal. Hence, I had a desire to stick to my goal of not quitting. Accordingly, from this experience, I learned that racing was not ideally about being the fastest, but doing your personal best. Significantly, having embraced a growth mindset throughout my running exercises, i changed my fixed mindset about yoga, and meditation is an effective method to lose weight. When I adopted the growth mindset, I had to make changes in my daily routine like waking up as early as 6:00 am and allocate enough time for my morning runs. Previously, I would wake up at around 7:00 am. Similarly, I had to prioritize the changes I made to adopt a growth mindset through setting goals. For instance, when I started running, my initial goal was to lose weight. As I adopted a growth mindset, I set a goal of making running a hobby and not quitting. Furthermore, making the changes would involve signing up to run for a full marathon later this year, hiring a running coach in addition to setting a regular running schedule.