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Pssssst!Can I make a slight edit to this question?How about we change it from self-help and make it about self-improvement?I’ll tell you why.To me, when we use the word help, there’s a sense of urgency. If you’re in trouble and you don’t have ample time to contemplate which step to take, you say, Help! It’s about emergencies, rapid decision-making, and solving—in most cases—one specific problem or issue.On the other hand, when we use the word improvement, there’s a much wider path that’s open to us. OK, so maybe we still feel a sense of urgency because we find ourselves in trouble, there’s a problem that’s on our mind, or we find ourselves repeating self-destructive behaviors but can’t seem to find a way out. Regardless of the problem, we need a solution. But the open path means that we can give ourselves the time to learn, solidify, retain, practice, and adopt new habits that can get us on the path to achieving a personal goal.Does that make sense?Now on to the answer.One self-improvement book that has changed my life, and is still changing it every single day, is Carol Dweck’s book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. To say that it’s changed my life is also an understatement. It has make me question so much about not only my life, but human behavior in general! And it’s helped me understand that we as human beings have so much power in our hands to make our lives so much more. Lives that are better. Smarter. More fulfilling. More valuable. And with more purpose.To summarize, Dweck’s book is about our mindset—the set of attitudes and beliefs we have about the world around us, people we interact with, and ultimately about ourselves. She suggests that the view we have of ourselves can dramatically affect the way we lead our life. Dweck makes an important distinction between two types of mindsets that people generally have. One is a fixed mindset—believing that our skills, strengths, and qualities are set in stone and there’s nothing we can do to change them, for better or for worse. The other is a growth mindset—believing that we can cultivate those same skills and qualities through long-term dedication and effort. While a fixed mindset is adopted over time by listening to messages from a young age about what we can, should, or shouldn’t do (usually by parents, relatives, teachers), a growth mindset is nurtured primarily by ourselves as we deliberately select those learning opportunities that can benefit us.What does practicing a growth mindset look like in real life?Here are 5 ways to incorporate it into your day so you can see what a difference it can make.Growth mindset idea #1. Learn something new every day.It’s not limited to what’s on your current course syllabus or school curriculum for the year. It doesn’t have to be limited by your job description, or even a particular interest or hobby you’re pursuing in the evening hours or on weekends. You can learn something new and different in many ways. You can spend an evening watching a documentary about everything there is to know on ancient Egypt, artificial intelligence, or Alexander the Great. Or, you can research something practical and useful in your daily life, such as which foods can give you energy to train for a marathon or just get you through an interval training session at the gym. Whatever it is, one thing is key— stay curious and be willing to learn something you do not know right now.Growth mindset idea #2. Create your own “growth mindset” tribe.You may have heard of the phrase that you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. And chances are, you don’t give much thought to the company you keep, whether it’s people you live with or the ones you interact with on a regular basis. Still, it’s important because you may not be aware of how much those closest to you—family members, close friends, coworkers and classmates—can impact your mood, your attitude, your beliefs, and even what you see as your strengths or weaknesses. How can you pick more growth mindset people to hang out with? Make friends with people who show a can-do attitude, who take on a positive and optimistic tone when talking about problems, and who work hard every day on getting better at something. Get to know them better and nurture friendships with them.Growth mindset idea #3. Change the way you look at success.Here’s an excellent example of fixed versus growth mindset. If you’ve adopted a fixed mindset, you think being successful means that things come easily and effortlessly to you or to someone else, whether it’s being a straight A student or a chess champion. The downside to a fixed way of thinking is that people get too comfortable in doing something well with little effort. So what’s the growth mindset way of thinking? Instead of thinking that success is being the best, you start thinking of success as doing your best. This means you switch your focus from staying in the comfort zone to coming up with ways to improve how you do your work, such as breaking down a difficult task in smaller and more doable increments, or waking up a bit earlier each morning to practice a positive habit such as doing yoga or going for a run.Growth mindset idea #4. Declare war on your inner lazy self.Here’s another excellent example of how your fixed mindset can be undermining your efforts. If you have a fixed mindset, as soon as you achieve a goal (pass an exam, turn in a large project ahead of the deadline, or win a prestigious competition), you tend to slip into a complacent mood. You sit back, take it easy, pat yourself on the back for doing so well…. and then just expect things to go smoothly in the future. With a growth mindset, you don’t let things go that easily. Yes, it’s important to take a breather, acknowledge reaching an important milestone, and appreciate how far you’ve come. But give yourself a time limit. Then be proactive to make sure your success doesn’t just fall into oblivion. For example, if you’ve passed your exams, don’t spend your entire vacation on the couch watching TV or gaming; instead, build a cool new skill that excites you such as learning karate or playing electric guitar.Growth mindset idea #5. Don’t get envious, get proactive.It’s not a big surprise to start feeling envious whenever we hear a friend, coworker, or acquaintance start talking about something wonderful that’s happening in their life right now. It can be a number of things—they just began attending a course they’re fascinated with, they started a personal project they’ve been putting off for years and are now fully engrossed in it, or they’re starting their own business and adore their entrepreneurial lifestyle. What’s a better way to deal with such news? Resist the urge to feel envious that things are going well for them, and instead take a cue from them and spend some time brainstorming original ideas of your own. Which project can you start that can improve the quality of your life? How can you make a career decision that will benefit you in the long run? Write your ideas down, then come up with a plan to turn them into actions. And that, right there, is practicing your own growth mindset—one new idea at a time!Did you find these tips helpful?This answer is just a sample of the material I’m putting together in an online course called “Imagine What's Possible: A Beginner's Guide to the Growth Mindset.” In the course you’ll be able to:Discover how your attitude and mindset are critical to successDifferentiate between a fixed and growth mindset way of thinkingIdentify “fixed mindset” behavior that you can correctApply “growth mindset” behavior through practical tipsPractice what you’ve learned with exercises and templates specially designed for this course.Click here for more details if you’d like to enroll.

McKinsey crunched 2015 Pisa data to empirically analyse drivers of (high school) student success and summarized conclusions by continent (there were regional variations in the factor weights).Drivers of student performance: Insights from North AmericaDefying the conventional paradigm that kids from wealthy households are hugely privileged by being given access to expensive prep services, the report found that - in North America - student mindsets have a 3 times (!) stronger impact than socioeconomic factors. (Cf link above).On another note, it is meanwhile widely accepted that early childhood experiences are more determining adult life outcomes than anything happening later (such as college prep sessions). Oddly, for the North American sample - an anomaly from the rest of the world in this respect - early childhood education however produced no visible status advantage. This would be the other area, where household wealth could be expected to matter indirectly. Turns out from the data, it did not, at least not in North America.The parents’ attitude towards the value of education (not in an economic sense), generally plays a huge role, but that is not directly linked to their socio-economic status necessarily. When it comes to nurturing intellectual curiosity in your kids, ‘Brooklyn may well be a better surrounding than Manhattan’ - so to speak.Ivy League colleges make serious efforts to attract the able and willing kids these days by diligently assessing how applicants ‘played the hand they were dealt’ in life. Never before did socioeconomically (or otherwise) disadvantaged high school students have a better chance (comparatively speaking) to make it into an Ivy League school. And enrollment statistics (such as - inter alia: share of first generation to attend college students) demonstrate that indeed they benefit from that.

You might start with the administrative trend to consider teachers as “learning facilitators”. Also, look at job descriptions for teachers. They may start with things like; maintain an orderly classroom, comply with school directives, follow state guidelines for student success in grade-level testing, maintain a safe learning environment, participate in continued professional development and be a part of the peer learning community of faculty, analyze individual student data to assure students, parents, and community stake-holders that students will be prepared to fill future jobs in areas that don’t currently exist. Everyone of these things were on job descriptions for science teachers I have viewed today. Only about half mention actual teaching. When I applied and was hired at two universities as a lecturer / research associate, I spent several days with individual faculty discussing my work and plans in terms of how I would fit in. I was required to give a 1 hour seminar, with questions, about my work and plans for students. In four teaching positions for high school, I have never been asked for a sample lesson nor have I been interviewed by an individual (always a committee) and never for more than 45 minutes. My question is, do schools value teachers or sre they looking for “placeholders”. Maybe good teaching skills aren't something secondary schools really desire.I realize I’m being jaded and my experiences don’t reflect all schools. I especially don’t believe it reflects the real attitude of the majority of teachers. For example, today I sat in on my grand-daughter’s piano lesson. The teacher, a 4th year college student, had just finished another session with an accomplished cellist. She came directly into our lesson and displayed excellent teaching style, patience, and adjustments in pedagogy for Isabelle, who has been taking lessons for 3 months. I asked the teacher several questions at the end of the lesson and she was patient with me and gave me the information I needed. I doubt the teacher ever suspected that, even though my doctorate is in science, I attended college on a music scholarship and I would be perfectly comfortable evaluating her teaching and giving her an “exceeds expectations”. There are fantastic teachers out there. We need to nurture them and let them know how much we value them and what they do for our kids.