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Last Updated on September 28, 2023
Did you ever notice that some people preparing for the GMAT seem to handle all kinds of obstacles and setbacks calmly and effectively? Whether they have trouble understanding a concept, are performing poorly on a practice test, or experience another type of GMAT related issue, they don’t seem to get frustrated or anxious. Rather, they press on and eventually achieve their goals. So, what is it that enables GMAT students and other people to operate this way and succeed?
Stanford University professor Carol Dweck had a similar question. She observed that some students are devastated by issues they experience while learning, while others are more resilient, bounce back from setbacks, welcome challenges as opportunities, and in general enjoy the learning experience. So, she studied thousands of students to determine what some had going on that resulted in their having these tendencies that lead to success. In doing so she discovered that the key thing these students had in common was what she termed a “growth mindset.”
So, how do students with a growth mindset see their mistakes and other setbacks, and what is it about a growth mindset that enables students to succeed? In this article, I’m going to explore the answers to these questions and discuss how anyone can develop a growth mindset and harness it to achieve GMAT success. Let’s begin by discussing what a growth mindset is.
- Understanding What a Growth Mindset Is
- How Having a Growth Mindset Leads to GMAT Success
- How to Foster a Growth Mindset
Understanding What a Growth Mindset Is
A growth mindset is a way of viewing yourself that involves the idea that your intelligence and basic abilities can be developed through work and the utilization of good strategies and input from others. We can also understand a growth mindset by contrasting it with a fixed mindset, which involves the idea that abilities and other personal qualities are largely fixed and can’t be significantly changed. So, basically, a person with a fixed mindset has the impression that his or her successes or failures depend on fixed traits, whereas a person with a growth mindset believes that he or she is in control of his or her destiny.
As a result, people with fixed mindsets and people with growth mindsets handle challenges and setbacks very differently. For instance, since people with fixed mindsets believe that everyone’s traits are fixed, one of their goals is to appear smart, and thus show that their supposedly fixed abilities are strong. The goal of people with growth mindsets, on the other hand, is to learn. Accordingly, people with fixed mindsets tend to avoid challenges, whereas people with growth mindsets embrace challenges.
KEY FACT:
The goal of people with fixed mindsets is to look smart, whereas the goal of people with growth mindsets is to learn.
Some other common characteristics of people with fixed mindsets are that they give up easily, don’t see the point of effort, tend to ignore feedback, and feel threatened by the success of others. In contrast, people with growth mindsets persist in the face of setbacks, see effort as the path to mastery, learn from feedback, and are inspired by the success of others.
Now that we better understand what fixed and growth mindsets are, let’s consider how having a growth mindset can help you to master the GMAT.
How Having a Growth Mindset Leads to GMAT Success
The connection between having a growth mindset and GMAT success is that a person with a growth mindset believes that he or she can develop his or her abilities, and GMAT success requires developing abilities. So, a growth mindset is exactly what’s needed for GMAT success. To see why more clearly, let’s consider some examples.
For instance, let’s say someone preparing for the GMAT is strong in quant but weak in verbal. If she has a fixed mindset, she’s likely to give up easily if her verbal preparation doesn’t go well. On the other hand, if she has a growth mindset, she’ll see any trouble she’s having as just a natural part of the learning process and continue working until she succeeds.
Also, a person’s mindset can have a huge impact on a person’s psychology when he’s taking a test. If he has a fixed mindset, on some level, he’ll be constantly wondering whether his supposedly fixed abilities are strong enough to get him to his score goal. So, he may take any trouble performing as desired on a test as a sign that his abilities aren’t sufficient. Having such a mindset can be super anxiety provoking. On the other hand, a person with a growth mindset will see test performance issues as something to power through or just a sign that he has to prepare more.
In general, GMAT students with a fixed mindset see mistakes or other issues as indicating something about them personally, whereas students with a growth mindset see their mistakes as signs that they haven’t mastered something yet and need to keep going.
Now that we’ve seen how mindsets people have affect their GMAT success, let’s discuss fostering a growth mindset in ourselves.
How to Foster a Growth Mindset
The truth is that you can develop your basic abilities and other personal qualities. So, much of what you have to do to foster a growth mindset in yourself is to see yourself clearly. For instance, if you think you’re naturally talented in verbal but not in quant, or vice versa, consider your attitudes toward the two topic areas and how much work you’ve put into or exposure you’ve had to each of them. You’ll likely see that there are clear reasons other than natural ability for the differences between your skill levels in the two areas.
It also helps to see others clearly. For instance, if you hear that someone has scored high on the GMAT, rather than be intimidated by that success, seek to understand how that person achieved that success, even if that person seemed to have achieved it without much preparation. You can be sure that that person wasn’t born knowing how to answer GMAT quant questions in two minutes each or understanding modifier rules necessary for answering Sentence Correction questions. He or she prepared somewhere along the line in order to achieve that GMAT score, and you can learn from what that person did, apply what you learn, and achieve a similar score.
Also, understanding the learning process helps. The learning process naturally has easier and more difficult periods, and by understanding that the difficult times are the times when you’re learning the most and literally growing your brain, you’ll more easily embrace those times, persist through them, and develop yourself.
In general, you can keep in mind that it’s only logical that, through practice and hard work, you can develop your abilities. You’ve done so before, and you can do so again.
It’s only logical that, through practice and hard work, you can develop your abilities. You’ve done so before, and you can do so again.
So, by fostering a growth mindset and seeing your mistakes or any other issues or challenges you run into as opportunities to learn and develop yourself, you’ll master the GMAT and succeed in other areas of life as well. For some more GMAT prep inspiration, you could read these posts on developing the proper mindset for GMAT success and a surprising factor that is key to hitting your GMAT score goal: grit.
