Growth thinkers dramatically improve their abilities to accomplish things that would otherwise be impossible

Growth mindset people don't just seek challenges, they also grow in challenges, the more room they have to grow. This phenomenon is particularly evident in the world of sport.

You can see for yourself how people expand their abilities and grow themselves. Mia Hamm, the best women's soccer player in the United States at the time, said bluntly: "I have been trying all my life, always trying to challenge myself to compete with athletes who are older, stronger, more skilled and experienced than me, that is, people who are better than me." 」 In the beginning, she played football with her brother; At the age of 10, she joined the football team of the 11-year-old boy; She then joined the number one college soccer team in the United States. "Every day, I hope to be able to work hard to their level ... As a result, I'm progressing unexpectedly fast.

Patricia. Miranda was overweight and athletically talented in high school, but she desperately wanted to be a wrestler. After one of those terrible falls, someone said to her, "You're a joke." At first, she cried, but then she thought, "This really made me make up my mind... I'm going to keep working hard and see if hard work, focus, and training make me a wrestler. Where did she come from with such determination?

Miranda grew up in an environment that didn't have many challenges. But after her mother died of an aneurysm at the age of 40, 10-year-old Miranda had this idea: "When you're lying in bed and about to leave this world, one of the amazing things you can say is: 'I've reached my full potential in this life.'" The death of my mother gave me that sense of urgency. If you only do simple things in this life, then you should feel ashamed. So when wrestling turned into a challenge, she was ready to go for it.

Her efforts paid off. At the age of 24, Miranda had the last laugh. She won the opportunity to represent Team USA at the Olympics and brought back a bronze medal from the Athens Olympics. What's next? Yale Law School. She was persuaded to stay in the glorious position she already had, but Miranda thought it would be more interesting to start from the bottom and see what she could achieve this time.

Sometimes, growth mindset people do things that would otherwise be impossible by dramatically improving their abilities. In 1995, actor Christopher Reeve fell off his horse, his neck was broken, and the connection between the spine and the brain was severed, resulting in complete paralysis from the neck down. The medical results said: I'm really sorry, you can only accept this reality.

However, Reeve embarked on a difficult rehabilitation training program that included moving all paralyzed body parts with the help of electric shock stimulation. Why couldn't he try to get back into motion? Why can't he let his brain give instructions to his body again? Doctors warned that he behaved because he was in a period of not acknowledging reality and because he was disappointed in himself. They had seen this before, and it was a bad omen for Reeve's self-adjustment. But, seriously, what else could Reeve do every day? What better plan?

Five years later, Reeve was able to move. At first there were only hands, then arms, then legs, and finally the whole torso. Although he was still far from full recovery, brain scans showed that his brain was able to transmit signals to the body again, and the body responded to the signals. Not only did Reeve improve his abilities, he also changed the way science perceives the nervous system as a whole and the way it thinks about its potential for recovery. His perseverance has opened up new directions for medical research and brought new hope to people with spinal injuries.

(Carol Deway's Lifelong Growth Reading Notes)