The term growth mindset refers to a belief that you can grow your abilities through a combination of hard work, applying useful strategies, and learning from mistakes, as well as accepting help from others when needed. People with a growth mindset tend to stick to tasks even when times get rough, embracing challenges and persisting in the face of setbacks because they believe effort is the key to mastery. They also learn from constructive criticism and apply lessons they may extrapolate from the experiences of others. This is the opposite of having a fixed mindset, which means a person believes their intelligence level is static and that putting effort toward pushing their boundaries is pointless, leading them to avoid challenges and give up in the face of obstacles because they don’t see a point in persisting.
You can’t do everything, but you can do one thing, and then another and another. In terms of energy, it’s better to make a wrong choice than none at all. You might begin by listing your priorities—for the day, for the week, for the month, for a lifetime. Start modestly.
Learning any new skill involves relatively brief spurts of progress, each of which is followed by a slight decline to a plateau somewhat higher in most cases than that which preceded it . . . the upward spurts vary; the plateaus have their own dips and rises along the way. . . .
