40 Carol Dweck Quotes About A Growth Mindset

Did you know that your mindset is the blueprint for your success in life? Without the right mindset, nothing is possible. But with the right mindset? Everything is possible. Allow these Carol Dweck quotes about her theory on the growth mindset allow you to foster and empower your own.

What is a Growth Mindset?

Dweck defines a growth mindset as: “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment[.]”

How can you develop your own growth mindset?

Changing our mindset is not easy and we hope that this collection of growth mindset quotes inspires you to develop yours!

1. Test scores and measures of achievement tell you where a student is, but they don’t tell you where a student could end up. – Carol Dweck

2. Becoming is better than being. – Carol Dweck

3. Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives. – Carol Dweck

4. If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning. That way, their children don’t have to be slaves of praise. They will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence. – Carol Dweck

5. So what should we say when children complete a task—say, math problems—quickly and perfectly? Should we deny them the praise they have earned? Yes. When this happens, I say, “Whoops. I guess that was too easy. I apologize for wasting your time. Let’s do something you can really learn from! – Carol Dweck

6. We like to think of our champions and idols as superheroes who were born different from us. We don’t like to think of them as relatively ordinary people who made themselves extraordinary. – Carol Dweck

7. Picture your brain forming new connections as you meet the challenge and learn. Keep on going. – Carol Dweck

8. More and more research is suggesting that, far from being simply encoded in the genes, much of personality is a flexible and dynamic thing that changes over the lifespan and is shaped by experience. – Carol Dweck

9. This is hard. This is fun. – Carol Dweck

10. Important achievements require a clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies. Plus allies in learning. – Carol Dweck

11. Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean that others can’t do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training. – Carol Dweck

Carol Dweck Quotes

12. Wow, that’s a really good score. You must have worked really hard. – Carol Dweck

13. A company that cannot self-correct cannot thrive. – Carol Dweck

14. Vowing, even intense vowing, is often useless. The next day comes and the next day goes. What works is making a vivid, concrete plan. – Carol Dweck

15. What did you learn today? What mistake did you make that taught you something? What did you try hard at today? – Carol Dweck

16. What can I learn from this? What will I do next time I’m in this situation? – Carol Dweck

17. Choosing a partner is choosing a set of problems. There are no problem-free candidates. – Carol Dweck

18. The whole point of marriage is to encourage your partner’s development and have them encourage yours. – Carol Dweck

19. Your failures and misfortunes don’t threaten other people. . .It’s your assets and your successes that are problems for people who derive their self-esteem from being superior. – Carol Dweck

20. Teaching is a wonderful way to learn. – Carol Dweck

21. Effort is one of those things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it. – Carol Dweck

22. Did I win? Did I lose? Those are the wrong questions. The correct question is: Did I make my best effort?” If so, he says, “You may be outscored but you will never lose. – Carol Dweck

23. …when people already know they’re deficient, they have nothing to lose by trying. – Carol Dweck

24. I believe ability can get you to the top,” says coach John Wooden, “but it takes character to keep you there.… It’s so easy to … begin thinking you can just ‘turn it on’ automatically, without proper preparation. It takes real character to keep working as hard or even harder once you’re there. When you read about an athlete or team that wins over and over and over, remind yourself, ‘More than ability, they have character.’ – Carol Dweck

25. I don’t mind losing as long as I see improvement or I feel I’ve done as well as I possibly could. – Carol Dweck

More uplifting Carol Dweck quotes

26. No matter what your current ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.  – Carol Dweck

27. Picture your brain forming new connections as you meet the challenge and learn. Keep on going.  – Carol Dweck

28. A growth mindset is belief you can develop abilities.  – Carol Dweck

29. Failure is information-we label it failure, but it’s more like, ‘This didn’t work, I’m a problem solver, and I’ll try something else.’  – Carol Dweck

30. The other thing exceptional people seem to have is a special talent for converting life’s setbacks into future successes.  – Carol Dweck

31. You have to work hardest for the things you love most.  – Carol Dweck

32. Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over.  – Carol Dweck

33. Even in the growth mindset, failure can be a painful experience. But it doesn’t define you. It’s a problem to be faced, dealt with, and learned from.  – Carol Dweck
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to check out our collection of mindset quotes that will help take you where you want to go in life.

34. When people with the fixed mindset opt for success over growth, what are they really trying to prove? That they’re special. Even superior.  – Carol Dweck

35. You’re in charge of your mind. You can help it grow by using it in the right way.  – Carol Dweck

36. Those with the growth mindset found setbacks motivating. They’re informative. They’re a wakeup call.  – Carol Dweck

37. The students with growth mindset completely took charge of their learning and motivation. – Carol Dweck

38. Character, heart, the mind of a champion. It’s what makes great athletes and it’s what comes from the growth mindset with its focus on self-development, self-motivation, and responsibility. – Carol Dweck

39. Only people with a growth mindset paid close attention to information that could stretch their knowledge. Only for them was learning a priority. – Carol Dweck

40. Your horse is only as fast as your brain. Every time you learn something, your horse will move ahead. – Carol Dweck

Carol Dweck: The power of believing that you can improve

Which Carol Dweck quotes about having a Growth Mindset were your favorite?