Nolan’s Growth Mindset Journal

Chapter 1

THE POWER OF

GRIT

WHERE DO YOU SHOW THESE SKILLS BEST?

I think I show my grit the best at two different places, School and Climbing. I think I show grit at school because even if things go wrong, I’ll always try to finish. I once decided to make a long stop motion animation for a project. After I started I realized that it’s going to take a lot more work then expected. Instead of giving in, I spent the entire weekend working on it. In the end it was one of my proudest projects I had completed.

I also think I show a lot of grit in when I climb. I’ve always had the goal to reach top ten or even finals at a national championship. I’ve tried twice now and I’ve come up short both times. However, I’m still trying and training even though there are no tournaments this year. Climbing also showcases a lot of smaller examples of grit. For example, I have tried a climb dozens of times before I’ve finally got it. Some professional climbers try one climb for over a year. It takes some grit to be able to get back up and try it again after so many failures.

Bouldering Nationals

What have you realized about your own grit and effort?

I’ve realized that I have a lot of grit, but only for things I’m passionate about or is required. This is probably true for most people, but I tend to stick with things I’m interested in. If I lose interest, there’s probably a good chance that I won’t go through with it. The one exception is when there’s a lot of pressure in you exceeding, other wise know as school. Even though at school, I tend to lose interest in some projects, I still persevere because I hate the feeling of failure.

Apollo 11 Props From a Really long Stop Motion Animation That I Nearly Gave up on

WHERE COULD YOU USE THESE SKILLS MORE?

Bird House Project we Never Finished

I think that I could still probably use these skills more in school. There have been so many times where I have felt like giving up, so it would be nice to have a little extra grit. I also think I could use these skills more at home. Like I said earlier I tend to drop projects that I lose interest in. Because there is no pressure in completing the project, if I don’t feel like doing it, I won’t do it. This isn’t such a big deal most of the time, but having a little more perseverance in completing these projects would be very helpful to get stuff done.

I think writing is a fixed mindset because I’m not passionate about it. Most of the time I only write because I have to. This means that I normally just want to just get it over with, so when I can’t think of an idea I can get really frustrated.

I could try turning this into a growth mindset by being more passionate about writing. However this could be quite hard to do, since most of the time, I don’t get to choose what I write about.